3D
The 3D scene layer is real 3D inside a wallpaper: shapes and models lit by lights that cast shadows, with particles in the same space, seen through a camera that can circle slowly or lean towards the pointer. It's one layer, so it stacks with the rest of the scene like any other.
Try it: Lantern Sea (3D particles and lights), Jelly Bloom (an animated glTF model with clips), First Light (a model made in code, lit, with sparks).
Add a 3D scene
Click + in the Outliner's tab and add a 3D scene (it's under 3D). It starts with something to look at: a ground, a shiny sphere, a glowing ring, a cube, a sun, a green point light and some fireflies. Change them or take them out.
Pick the layer. Its settings on the right have three groups:
- Objects and lights: the settings of the thing picked in the space. This is the 3D editor.
- Camera: where you look from.
- Light and air: the background, the ambient light, fog, glow and exposure.
Distances are in metres, measured from the middle of the floor, and up is up.
What's in the scene
What's in the space is listed in the Outliner, under the 3D scene layer: its Camera, then each thing in it. Click one to pick it; its settings show under Objects and lights. The eye on a row hides it without taking it out, and the lock keeps its settings as they are. A model's row opens to show its parts, each with an eye of its own.
Right-click a row for Rename, Hide, Lock, Move up and Move down (the order only keeps the list tidy), Duplicate, Delete and Add to this scene…. Add, under Objects and lights, and the + on the layer's row in the Outliner offer:
- a Shape: Cube, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone, Ring, Capsule or Ground;
- a Model…;
- Particles;
- a light: Sun, Point light or Spotlight.
A new one goes in after the one picked. To put one of the scene's particle systems in the space, drag it from Assets onto the layer: it has a place, how it Leans, an Amount and a Speed.
A scene holds up to 48 things, and up to 8 of them can be lights.
Shapes
Every shape has the same three groups of settings.
Place: Left and right, Up and down and Near and far in metres; Size; then Width, Height and Depth to stretch it, and Tilt, Turn and Roll to turn it.
Surface: what it's made of.
- Colour, Metal and Roughness. Metal and smooth makes a mirror; rough and not metal makes chalk.
- Glow and Glow colour: it gives off light of its own. It looks lit, and it blooms, but it doesn't light the things round it. Use a light for that.
- Opacity.
- Picture on it, and Picture repeats to tile it.
- Casts shadows and Shows shadows.
Motion: it moves on its own. Spin and Tumble turn it, Circle the middle sends it round the scene, Bob and Bob every float it up and down, and Moves to sound makes it grow with the bass and glow on the beat.
The Ground is a wide floor that Fades out at its edges, so it melts into what's behind instead of ending in a line.
Models
Add a Model… and Studio asks for the file straight away. It takes glTF (.glb or .gltf), FBX (.fbx), Collada (.dae), Wavefront (.obj), .ply and .stl files. A .glb is the easiest: one file with its textures inside. When you save, Studio copies the model into the scene's folder, so the scene carries it. A model file can be up to 256 MB, and its pictures are drawn at 4096 pixels across at most.
Under Model: File picks another file; Material is Its own (the colours and textures it came with) or These settings (the Surface settings, as for a shape); Sides is As its file says, Both or Far side. A model has the same Place, Surface and Motion as a shape. Its Size is how big it's drawn, in metres.
A model with animations has an Animation group:
- Clip picks one of its clips, with Playing, Speed, Plays (Round again, There and back or Once) and Start at.
- Fade to and Fade blend it into a second clip.
- Walks off lets a clip that moves the whole model carry it away, instead of keeping it in place.
- Bends: Smoothly, or Keeping volume for joints that would otherwise pinch.
Shapes sets a model's blend shapes: from Its clips, or These, eight sliders of your own. From the model uses Its camera or Its lights, when the file has them.
Lights
There are three, and a scene can have up to eight.
| Light | What it is | Placed by |
|---|---|---|
| Sun | Light from far away, all in one direction, like daylight | Comes from and Height in the sky |
| Point light | A bulb: light in every direction from one place, fading with distance | Its place, and Reach |
| Spotlight | A cone of light from one place to another | Its place, where it Points at, Cone and Hard centre |
Every light has a Colour and a Brightness, and a spotlight a Reach too. Point lights and spotlights have Flicker, Circle the middle, Bob and Moves to sound (brightens with the bass, flashes on the beat); the sun has Goes round, to circle the scene slowly, and Moves to sound.
Under Light and air on the layer, Ambient light and Ambient amount fill in the shadows with light from nowhere in particular, so they aren't black.
Shadows
The sun and spotlights cast shadows unless you turn Casts shadows off; a point light casts them when you turn it on. Up to four lights cast shadows at once: the first four in the list that ask.
For each light that casts them:
- Shadow detail: Low, Medium, High or Best. The wallpaper's quality setting lowers it.
- Shadow softness and Shadow darkness.
- Shadow bias: raise it if surfaces show stripes; lower it if shadows seem to float.
A shape or model only throws a shadow when its own Casts shadows is on, and only shows one when Shows shadows is on.
Particles in the space
Add Particles to have snow, embers, fireflies, a galaxy swirl or sparks move in real depth among the shapes. Pick the Kind, then how they're Drawn as:
- Glowing: soft lights.
- Lit: they take the scene's lights.
- Solid: little spheres that can cast shadows.
- Streaks: lines along the way they go.
Then where they are (Left and right, Up and down, Near and far), Amount, Size, Speed, Life, Area, Gravity, Wind, Swirl, Drawn to the pointer and Moves to sound. Colours of my own lets you pick two colours instead of the kind's, and Cast shadows lets them throw shadows.
For particles you build module by module, use a Particle system layer with its Space set to 3D, or keep the system as an asset and drag it onto the 3D scene layer, to place it among the shapes.
The camera
The Camera group, on the layer:
- Field of view: wide or narrow, like a lens.
- Distance from what it looks at, and Height, from looking down from above to looking up from below.
- Around: where it stands, round the scene.
- Goes round: circles the scene on its own, in degrees a second. 0 holds it still.
- Looks at the height: how high the point it looks at is.
- Leans to the pointer: the camera moves a little towards the pointer, so the scene has real depth as you move the mouse.
Light and air
- Background: Clear lets the layers under this one show round the 3D; Colour fills it with Background colour.
- Fog and Fog colour: far things fade into it.
- Bloom: bright and glowing parts bloom, inside the 3D.
- Tone mapping (None, Filmic, ACES or Hejl) and Exposure: how bright light is turned into colours on the screen. Filmic is a good start.
Physics and objects
Shapes in a 3D scene don't fall or collide by themselves. When you want things that tumble and bounce:
- The Physics layer drops circles, boxes or a picture of yours that stack and bounce under gravity, with the pointer throwing them. It's a flat 2D layer, and the quickest way to get something falling.
- For your own things that move, make them motes and give them a body. The scene's Gravity (3D, up) setting is the pull on them, in metres a second a second: select Scene at the top of the Outliner and it's on the Physics card.
Keep it light
A 3D scene is one of the heavier layers. Shadows cost the most: fewer lights casting them, and lower Shadow detail, help first. Then fewer particles, and less Bloom. Performance has more. Every setting is in the reference: 3D scene, 3D particles and Physics.
Last changed 2 November 2026. Something wrong here? Tell us.