Chisel
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Carve

Carve is a difference boolean that cuts with a grown copy of another shape. The target’s field, expanded by the Offset, carves the surface, so the target sits in a pocket slightly larger than itself.

the Carve modifier settings

Unlike a boolean cutter, a carve target is a live object: it keeps rendering, sitting in the pocket it cut.

a shape sitting in the pocket it carved

Adding a carve

  • Pie menu (Q) or right-click → Modifiers: the Carve button, next to Emboss and Engrave. Select the target shapes, make the host active, click. Like the other boolean buttons it is dual-function: click adds, Shift + click swaps every modifier targeting the selection to Carve, and the button lights up when the selected shape is already a carve target.
  • Modifier panel: Add Modifier → Carve adds an empty Carve to the active object; pick the Target in the panel afterwards.
  • Active tool: set the tool’s Operation to Carve and draw a shape. It is wired as a carve onto every selected shape, and unlike a boolean cutter it keeps rendering. See Active Tool.

The operation cycle keys ; and ' now step through Difference → Union → Intersect → Emboss → Engrave → Carve.

Parameters

  • Target: the shape whose grown field does the cutting. A native object search box; type or pick by name.
  • Offset: how far the target’s field is expanded before it carves (default 0.1, soft max 2.0). 0 is a plain difference. The offset never goes negative: a carve only ever grows the target.
  • Blend: enable a fillet along the carve edge, with Outer (radius), Profile and Smooth exactly as on a Boolean.

There is no Material Blend. The pocket always keeps the base object’s material, the way a bisect cut does. The target’s colour never reaches the face it carves.

Adjusting the offset

Four ways to drag the offset live:

  • the third ring-arc at the bottom-right gizmo cluster, outside rounding and blend, in azure, see Gizmos
  • the Offset button in the pie’s South-West wedge, when a selected shape is a carve target
  • Offset in the right-click menu
  • the Carve row in the pie’s East wedge, when the host is active

Shift for precision, Ctrl to snap, Space / Enter to confirm, RMB / Esc to put the value back. The blend is adjusted like any other boolean blend: Ctrl + B, the blend arc, or the Blend entries in the pie and right-click menu.

Notes

  • The target keeps rendering in its own material and is parented to the host so the two move together.
  • Apply All never deletes a carve target. Clean detaches it like any operand; Clean Mods removes a Carve whose target was deleted.
  • With a Mesh primitive as target, keep Offset plus the blend radius within its Field Margin; raise the margin and press Rebake SDF for a wider carve.

See also