Panels
Chisel’s properties live in three panels: Object Properties (per-object SDF settings), the Modifier tab (the Chisel modifier list), and Render Properties (per-scene engine settings), plus a Material Properties section for per-object color and the node tree.
Object Panel
The SDF section of Object Properties houses everything specific to the active object.
Primitive section
- Enable / Disable Chisel: toggle SDF mode on/off. Disabling falls back to the standard mesh. Enabling an object that carries Blender modifiers asks first, since those are removed.
- Render: controls whether this object is included in the ray-marched render. It’s decoupled from viewport display: turn it off to drop the shape from the render while it still shows in the viewport (as a wire outline or bounding box if Outline is set).
- Primitive Type: change shape type after creation
- Shape parameters: depend on the primitive type (radius, depth, sides, cone cap, etc., see Primitives)
- Rounding + Profile + Chamfer Smooth: edge-fillet controls (most primitives; see Rounding & Blending)
- Bevel + Bevel Profile + Bevel Smooth: vertical-edge fillet controls (Oblong, Prism, and Trapezoid; these three split the panel into a Bevel section and a Cap Rounding section)
Below the shape parameters sit the per-object actions: Clean, Clean Mods, Rebuild Mesh, and To Mesh. Detail is no longer set per object. The scene-wide Subdivision Level replaces the old Subdivision Bias.
Ngon points
An Ngon primitive replaces the usual shape parameters with an editable point list: index, X, Y, corner rounding, corner smooth, and an icon-only corner-profile dropdown per row, plus + / − buttons to add and remove points. Depth below it sets the half-height of the extrusion. Clicking a row makes that vertex active, which is also what the viewport Ngon gizmo drives.
Curve shapes
The three curve primitives show their curve settings and a Convert button for their type: Convert to Ngon, Convert to Ngon + Revolve, or Convert to Sweep Chain. See Convert Legacy Curve.
Mesh SDF
For a mesh object that is not yet a Chisel object, the panel offers Convert Mesh to SDF right under the Chisel toggle.
Once converted, a Mesh primitive gains a block at the bottom of the panel:
- an SDF is stale — mesh edited banner when the source mesh changed after its bake
- a Shown as placeholder box, with the reason and a Rebake to fit button, when the grid cannot be shown, see Mesh Primitive
- Rebake SDF, plus the Bake Resolution and Field Margin the re-bake uses. A resolution the GPU can no longer hold shows an over budget hint under the slider.
Bake direction
For per-object bake setup (used when baking maps):
- Bake Direction: Top / Bottom / Front / Back / Left / Right
- Bake Flip: invert horizontal axis of the bake
- Bake Height Origin / Range: height-map remap window
Modifier list
The Chisel Modifiers panel in the Modifier tab shows every Chisel modifier on the active object. It replaces Blender’s stock modifier panel for Chisel shapes only; plain meshes keep their normal Blender stack even with the Chisel engine active.
The toolbar at the top of the modifier list adds, collapses and expands modifiers, and opens the options menu, without dropping into menus.
Each modifier row has:
- A header chevron to expand/collapse its options
- An operation icon and label (Difference / Union / Intersect / Mirror / Bisect / Carve / Sweep / etc.), naming the target where there is one, in red with (no target) when the target is gone
- Move Up / Move Down, a pin toggle, and Remove. Pinned modifiers stay at the bottom of the stack; newly added modifiers insert above them. See Modifiers
Each expanded modifier shows its own settings block, see Modifiers for the per-modifier parameter list and screenshots of each settings block.
The options menu (the three-dot button) holds Expand (auto-expand new modifiers), Apply All (bake the chain into one shape, see Apply Modifiers), Delete All, and Clean Mods (drop every red (no target) row, see Clean Mods).
The list toolbar also carries a budget readout for the chain the active object belongs to: Objects N/256, turning red past about 80% of the cap, with a Modifiers M/… counter appearing once that cap is half used. A Smooth modifier does not count toward it.
Material Properties
Per-object color and the Chisel node graph live in Material Properties (red sphere icon). The material belongs to the object itself, so it survives undo and proxy swaps. For the simple color workflow and the node editor, see Materials.
Render Properties
Set the engine to Chisel in Render Properties to enable. The full breakdown of render settings (quality, performance, matcap, display, gizmos, baking) lives in Render Engine.