Studio

The modifier stack

Stack non-destructive geometry modifiers — shading, weld, decimate, and fit-to-bounds — reorder and toggle them over a live preview, then apply the stack to bake, with skinned-mesh guards throughout.

Aron Prins

Founder · Updated Jul 22, 2026 · 2 min read

On this page (5)

The Mods tab holds a per-mesh, non-destructive modifier stack. Each modifier recomputes a live preview from the mesh's pristine imported geometry, so toggling, reordering, or removing one always recomputes from scratch — nothing is baked until you say so. Modifiers apply to Mesh nodes only (Add is inert on groups and bones).

The four modifiers#

Modifier	Tag	What it does	Default params
Shading	`SHADE`	Recomputes normals: smooth (weld by position, one shared normal per vertex), flat (split every triangle to its own vertices for a faceted look), or auto (crease across edges below an angle).	`mode: auto`, `angle: 30`
Weld by distance	`WELD`	Merges vertices closer than a distance into one, indexing the result and recomputing normals (seam welding).	`distance: 0.001` m
Decimate	`DECIM`	Reduces triangle/vertex count by grid vertex-clustering. Simple and honest — position + recomputed normals only; it drops UVs, vertex colors, and skin weights. `ratio` is the approximate fraction of vertices to keep.	`ratio: 0.5`
Fit to bounds	`FIT`	Uniformly scales the geometry so its largest bounding-box dimension equals a target size.	`size: 1` m

The original geometry is retained while you work, so changing or disabling a modifier rebuilds the preview from the source mesh.

Working with the stack#

Add modifier opens a menu of the four types; a new modifier lands at the default params, enabled and expanded.
Reorder with the ▲ / ▼ buttons — the stack applies top to bottom over the source geometry.
Toggle the dot to disable a modifier without removing it (a disabled modifier stays on the stack, skipped in the preview).
Expand a row to edit its params; changes re-preview live.
Remove with ✕.

Guards#

Some modifiers are disabled when they would discard data the mesh needs. The row shows the reason and is skipped in the preview:

Weld is disabled on skinned meshes — welding vertices corrupts skin weights.
Decimate is disabled on skinned meshes (it drops skin weights) and blocked on vertex-colored non-indexed geometry (vertex colors can't be preserved).

Shading and fit-to-bounds are safe on skinned meshes.

Apply stack (bake)#

Apply stack (bake) freezes the current preview as a new geometry generation and clears the stack — one undo step. The button is disabled when no enabled modifier actually applies (for example, an all-guarded stack).

Like a transform bake, the baked result lasts for the current session but is not restored from an editor project file. If you save before applying the stack, the still-editable stack can be restored and previewed again when you reopen the project. If you apply it, export a GLB before closing to keep the baked geometry. See Studio file formats.