New
Water material
A new Water shading model turns any mesh into a body of water. It adds moving ripples on the top surface, colour that deepens with depth, light scattering inside the water, caustics on what the water covers, and a sun glint. The viewport and ray tracing use the same waves and caustics, and ray tracing renders the water as a refracting volume. A Frost setting blurs what is seen through the surface, and moving the camera inside the water applies an underwater view with the same colour and caustics. Six presets are included, from Clear tropical to Murky. An Effects card adds Surface height, which moves the top surface with the ripples, Light shafts, sun beams inside the water that follow the scene’s shadows and the caustic pattern, and Particles, suspended motes inside the water, with their own opacity, brightness, colour, drift and swirl. A Spectral caustics slider sets the rainbow fringe on the caustic pattern and Caustic sharpness sets how crisp it is. Surface tint colours the reflection only. Foam, a toggle with amount, width, scale, breakup, speed, brightness and colour, adds foam where the water meets objects in the viewport and in ray tracing. The Water section now shows only the settings that apply to water. Light is absorbed and scattered along its real path through the water from the light’s position, so a lamp beside a tank lights it from that side, and ray tracing gives the same look from inside the water as from outside.
Glass caustics in ray tracing
Smooth glass now focuses light in ray tracing: a glass ball or a glass of water casts a sharp caustic on the surfaces around it, from point, spot, area and sun lights. Glass with Dispersion splits the caustic into colours, and frosted glass keeps its plain tinted shadow. Solved water caustics lets the waves of a Water material focus the light in the same way. Each glass and water material has a Casts caustics switch.
Fill tool
A new Fill tool closes the holes in a poly mesh. On entering it, every hole on the selected mesh is outlined and previewed with a translucent fill. Fill all closes every hole; Custom closes only the holes you click. Smooth follows the curvature of the surrounding surface, with a Curvature slider from flat to domed, and Flat closes the hole with a flat patch. Dragging Density shows the fill’s wireframe at the resulting resolution, and Undo removes the fill.
Tessellation card
Tessellation now rebuilds the surface under the brush evenly while you stroke: it splits long edges, merges short ones and evens the spacing, and keeps refining the detail created earlier in the same stroke. The Tessellation tool has its own card with a Stroke switch (Add, Even, Reduce, Relax), the Density and its comma shortcut, Sizing (Fixed, Screen or Curvature), and Max subdivision and Max reduction limits for each stroke. The poly brush’s Tessellation section shows the same settings, and its Tessellate switch turns tessellation on or off for every poly brush at once (Y by default, rebindable in Shortcuts). While it is on, the selected brush in the toolbar takes the grid colour of its mode. In Densify mode the brush density is a percentage of the mesh size, so the detail stays the same at any brush size; Adaptive mode keeps it relative to the brush. Detach thin parts, in the Quality section and the brush’s Advanced settings, cuts a strand that has been thinned down to a few edges and closes both ends, leaving two separate pieces; it acts once per stroke. A mesh with UVs or subdivision levels can be made tessellatable from the card, and removing its UVs keeps the mesh closed along the old seams. The density grid fades back in after each stroke; the fade time is set by Grid fade-in in the brush’s Advanced settings.
Live instances and Instance X
Poly meshes, their copies and folders gain Instance (live) and Instance X (live). A live instance stays linked to its parent: sculpting either one updates both, and moving the parent moves the instance with it. Instance X mirrors the parent across the X axis and follows it mirrored. Live instances have their own icon in the outliner, are removed when the parent is deleted, and every step can be undone. Make independent turns a live instance into a separate mesh.
Session recording from the timeline
The record button on the timeline now records the sculpting session as geometry snapshots in a .klaycache file. It can start a new recording, continue an existing file or load one. While recording, the timeline shows each snapshot, and the viewport shows a red REC line with the elapsed time, the number of snapshots and the file size. Pause, Snapshot and the capture interval sit beside the record button. When you stop, the recording appears in the outliner with a film icon and plays back on the timeline. You can also load a .klaycache file by dropping it onto the window. Export Stop Motion writes a range of snapshots as numbered files, one per frame, in OBJ, FBX, GLB, glTF, PLY, STL, DAE or ABC. Automatic keying moves to the Auto button next to Key.
Canvas view
The Canvas is now a view inside Klay, next to Viewport and UV on the view switch, instead of a separate window. It opens in place, keeps the top bar, and closing it returns to the viewport. The board keeps its content for the session and is saved on leave. A closed Canvas holds no graphics memory.
Pinned images in the viewport
Images pinned in the Canvas (P) stay on screen over the viewport after you switch back, at the same place and size. They are drawn under the panels and do not affect sculpting. A switch and an opacity control are in the Display settings of the shading pill; the pins are restored at the next start.
A canvas board for each project
The canvas is now saved with the project, as a .noosphere file beside the scene: every version of jackbob_v001.klay shares jackbob.noosphere. A recent scene whose canvas holds images shows a canvas badge on its welcome card, which opens the canvas alone without loading the scene. Image planes of an imported FBX camera are added to the canvas, and right-clicking one offers View through camera. With Send a copy to canvas on in the Render tab’s Output section, each rendered still is added to the canvas in rows of six, in the order it was rendered.
Post groups
The Post Processing tab now holds a list of post groups, each a complete set of post effects. Groups can be added, duplicated, renamed and deleted from their card header or right-click menu, and clicking a group’s card makes it the active look. The active group’s card contains every effect as its own card. In the Camera tab, each camera’s Post-process section chooses the scene’s active group or a specific group, which is applied when looking through that camera. Weather stays with the scene. Groups are saved with the scene, and the numbered preset slots have been removed.
Auto convert to poly
A new toggle on the Clay brush card turns each stroke into its own poly object when you release it. The clay layer is removed, and a fresh one is ready for the next stroke. Undo restores the clay layer.
Freeze a clay layer
A snowflake button on each clay layer in the outliner freezes the layer, and the poly brushes then sculpt it. A frozen layer shows a light blue tint in the outliner. Apply, or a second click on the snowflake, writes the work back into the clay layer; Discard restores the layer as it was.
Clay and Stamp brush settings in the Brush panel
The Brush panel now serves the Clay brush alongside the Poly and Mask brushes, with its settings grouped into collapsible sections and each operator’s own parameters folded under it. A Mode control at the top of the panel switches between Universal, Smooth Large, Move, Elastique and SDF Move, and hides the sections that do not apply. A Surfacing | Stamp switch under the Clay tab opens the Add and Carve stamp brushes the same way, including placement options such as Projector, Screen space draw, Angle snap and Surface snap, depth, blend, Combine, paint color and growth. Individual rows, the falloff curve and whole sections can be promoted to the toolbar or the tool card, either for every brush of that type or for the current preset only.
Keep open in Remesh
A Keep open toggle in the Remesh panel remeshes an open mesh, such as a plane, a cloth or a scan with holes, without closing its borders. The standard remesh caps them first. The result is a triangle mesh of at most 256 cells across.
Improved
Smooth blend for Boolean
Blend the join in the Boolean panel now turns the seam between two meshes into a soft, continuous transition. The area around the seam is rebuilt with even triangles and smoothed so that each surface flows into the other. Width sets the extent of the blend as a percentage of the smaller mesh, Density sets the triangle size, starting at the brush’s tessellation density, and Softness sets how much of the transition is applied. The blend is computed on the graphics card and applies in a fraction of a second. While it is on, a tint on both objects, clay layers and meshes alike, shows how far the blend reaches and follows the Width slider and any object you move. The Apply button shows the key that applies the boolean and closes the panel.
View switcher
The ` key now opens a switcher with a card for each view: Viewport, VR, UV and Canvas. Tap the key to keep it open and choose with 1–4 or a click, or hold it, pick a view and release. The Viewport card lists the scene’s cameras and the Canvas card lists this scene’s board and the boards of recent scenes, so the switcher can also change camera or open a board. Shift+1 to Shift+4 switch views directly. The sidebar is now hidden by holding T; tapping T still hides the sidebar and the toolbar together.
Import starts while the options are shown
When a model is dropped or opened, Klay now reads the file while the import options are on screen. Choosing Scene size or Original then applies the size and places the model, without waiting for the file to be read again.
Optimize IDs in the background
After sculpting with tessellation, starting to orbit the view now optimizes the mesh’s vertex order in the background, which restores the frame rate lost to the new detail without pausing the app. Optimize IDs from the outliner or a shortcut also runs in the background, and both can be undone. The automatic run is set by Optimize tessellated mesh on orbit in Settings, under Navigation, and is on by default.
Transparent background for renders
A Transparent background toggle in a render job’s Output section leaves the HDRI, the sky and the background colour out of the image and writes an alpha channel, so only the models appear. It applies to PNG and TIFF files at every bit depth, with the path tracer and the raster engine.
Camera cards show the lens at a glance
Each camera card in the Camera tab now carries a lens plate under its name: a small viewfinder of the scene through that camera, the focal length in large type with the f-stop, the exposure, the vertical field of view, the frame aspect, and DOF, LOCK and ORTHO badges that light up when on and toggle on click. A lens ruler under the plate sets the focal length by dragging or by clicking the 21, 28, 35, 50, 85 and 135 mm marks. The exposure number is itself a control: drag it to change the exposure and click it to reset. The viewfinder refreshes for the camera you are looking through once the view comes to rest, and other cameras keep their last picture. A density button on the Cameras header cycles three sizes: Small shows the name with the lens in one line, Medium shows the plate and ruler, and Thumbnail adds the viewfinder.
Tool card fits its sections
Opening or closing a section or sub-card in the sidebar’s tool card now resizes the card to fit its content, up to the usual maximum height. At all other times the card keeps the height set with its handle.
Licence activation message
Activating a licence key now shows a short thank-you card with the Klay logo, the licence type and the licensee’s name. It closes on its own after a few seconds, or when you click it.
Ocean shading
The ocean now reflects the Sky’s sun, moon and stars, and follows the environment blur and Reflection settings. Its colour comes from new absorption and scattering controls, and the caustics under the water follow the sun’s direction.
Brush reach
With Screen reach, the mask no longer marks surfaces facing away from you. Silhouette reaches through the whole model on every poly brush, Topology follows the connected surface and also applies to Smooth, and the mask keeps its chosen Reach with symmetry on.
Gizmo rotate snap and scale guide
With Shift held, rotating snaps in 5° steps at the ring and in 15° steps when the cursor is pulled further out. While scaling from the centre ring, the ring fades and a dotted line runs from a small dot on the pivot to the cursor.
Viewport HUD
The FPS overlay is now a Viewport HUD with a switch for each readout: object name, subdivision level, voxel density, polycount, scene totals, VRAM, symmetry, dyntopo, FPS and frame time. The readouts are stacked above the toolbar, and a line that does not apply to the selected object is hidden. The polycount previously shown at the bottom right is now part of the HUD.
Loading screen at launch
While Klay starts, a small panel shows the logo filling up as it loads. The main window appears once it is ready to use.
Arcball and Trackball orbit
The two free-orbit modes are now separate switches named Arcball and Trackball (previously Absolute trackball). Only one can be on at a time; with both off, the camera orbits as a turntable.
SpaceMouse settings
A SpaceMouse section in Navigation turns a 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse on or off and shows the connected device. Expand it to set the pan, zoom and orbit speeds, deadzone, response curve, smoothing and axis inversion.
Omni shadows for point and area lights
A new Omni shadow option on point and area lights casts shadows in every direction when the light is placed inside the scene, including objects beside or behind it. It is off by default and has no effect on a light placed outside the scene. While a light or object is being dragged, the regular shadow is used unless Omni while dragging is on.
Knife cut preview
While you drag the Laser Knife, the part of the selected model it will cut away is shown with a light red dither. Hold Shift when you start the cut to keep the line in place after you release the mouse: drag with the left button to move it, drag with the right button to rotate it, and release Shift to cut.
Flatten group
A new Flatten group command in a group’s right-click menu combines every polygon mesh in the group, including those in nested groups, into one mesh named after the group, in the group’s place. Clay layers in the group are not affected. Like Combine selected, it cannot be undone.
Dropping images on the viewport
Dropping one image on the viewport opens an Import image dialog with two choices: Import as image plane, which puts the image on the current camera (or on a new camera if the current one already has an image plane), and Send to canvas, which adds it to the Canvas board. Dropping several images sends them all to the canvas directly. Images named as texture maps are still connected to the selected mesh’s material.
The Canvas tab follows the Klay theme
Panels, menus, pills, popups, sliders and switches on the Canvas board now use the same surface colours, accent, corner radii, borders and drop shadows as the rest of Klay, and follow the theme live when it is changed in Settings > Theme.
Dropping images from a web browser on the canvas
An image dragged from a web page onto the Canvas board is now downloaded and placed where it is dropped. When the dragged image is a link to a page, the page’s preview image is used. A small indicator shows while the image downloads and while several dropped images are being added.
FBX camera import matches the source shot
An imported FBX camera now keeps the framing of the original render: its film fit, film offset and render aspect are applied, and the camera’s composition gate is set to that aspect. Camera-only files from Z-up or metre-based applications, cameras inside animated groups, and animated focal lengths import correctly, and the animation keeps the file’s frame numbers. Image planes keep their offset, scale and rotation, numbered image sequences play with the timeline, and EXR and HDR plates are supported.
Image plane colour and placement
A camera’s image plane now shows its image with the same colours as the Canvas board, whatever the camera’s exposure and view transform. A Colour setting offers sRGB (as in the canvas), sRGB (lit like the scene) and Linear. Edit placement, under Display, lets you move the image directly in the viewport: drag with the left button to move it, the middle button to rotate it, and the right button or the wheel to scale it. A Rotation slider sets the angle directly.
Select several cameras
Click a camera card’s header to select it, Ctrl+click to add or remove cameras, and Shift+click to select a range. Right-click › Delete then removes every selected camera; the scene always keeps at least one.
Isolate and lock on groups
Group rows in the outliner now have the Isolate and Lock buttons. Isolate shows only the objects in the group, including nested groups; Lock locks every object in the group and lights up when all of them are locked.
Split loose parts: new layout, island colours and Extract
The Split loose parts dialog has a new layout. The Largest, Custom and All modes and the ranking (Tris, Area, Extent) are now two selectors at the top. Each island is shown in its own colour, matching the outliner, and the islands that will not be kept are shown with a dither pattern. Hide removed hides those islands in the viewport so you see only the result; in Custom mode it hides the islands you have not picked. In Custom mode, a new Invert button swaps the picked and unpicked islands, and a new Extract button moves the picked islands into a new mesh without changing the rest of the original. Extract also works in Largest mode, where it moves the largest islands. Like Split, Extract cannot be undone.
Denoise settings for renders
Each render job has a Denoise section with the denoiser (Off, GPU or CPU), its quality and a Blend amount. By default a job uses the settings of the Raytrace tab; changing any of them gives the job its own settings, and Match Raytrace tab switches back. Quality presets no longer change the denoise settings. The saved image is now always denoised at the job’s final sample count.
Render file names follow the scene
Rendered images are now named after the scene file, for example sceneName_0001.png. Each still render of the same scene takes the next free number instead of replacing the previous image, and a sequence uses its frame numbers. The <scene> token can be used in any job’s file name pattern.
Wider Secondary bounces range
The Secondary bounces slider now goes up to 40 (previously 4), for brighter light in cavities and enclosed spaces.
Duplicate a render job from its card
Each render job card in the Render tab has a Duplicate button in its header. The copy keeps every setting of the original, so one value can be changed for a second render. Duplicate also remains in the card’s right-click menu.
Save Increment in the File menu
Save Increment, previously only in the radial hub, is now in the File menu. It saves the scene under the next version number, for example scene_v002.klay after scene_v001.klay.
VR starts in PBR Fast
Entering VR switches the shading to PBR Fast, and leaving VR restores the shading mode the viewport had before. The monitor shows the headset view during the session.
Radial hub windows in VR
Releasing the thumbstick now closes the radial hub together with any open Color, Brush or Stamp window. The next time the hub opens, the same window opens with it; closing a window with its X button keeps it closed.
Fixed
- Strokes with the Tessellation tool can now be undone, one stroke at a time.
- The Grab brush with tessellation on no longer pulls stray vertices out of the surface, and its Ctrl rotate and scale drags no longer distort the mesh; those drags do not tessellate.
- Tessellating across the seam of a Boolean result no longer splits the seam open.
- A clay layer sculpted with a Polygone brush just before a Boolean is now removed by the Boolean, instead of reappearing in the scene later.
- Optimize IDs no longer erases vertex paint and the mask.
- With the Boolean panel open, pressing D applies the boolean and closes the panel, whatever is selected and wherever the cursor is. Ctrl+B does the same, and P does so for the Projection panel.
- Autofocus now focuses on the average distance of what is visible at the centre of the frame, including clay layers and in the ray-traced preview; it previously ignored clay layers and read a value skewed toward the nearest surfaces. A Focus area slider in the Camera tab’s Depth of field section sets the size of the metered area.
- Image planes were displayed darker than the image file.
- While holding S to move the lights, dragging the selected sky or light no longer switches the selection back to All lights.
- In VR, the controller button maps on both hands were not shown.
- In VR, the radial hub was drawn smaller than its pointing area, so the laser selected items away from where it pointed.
- In VR, dragging a light with the Lantern caused stutters, and later light moves stayed slow.
- After leaving VR, the interface on the monitor could keep a layout sized for another screen resolution.
- Export Selected in the Canvas board’s right-click menu now opens the Export window: choose a folder, keep the original names or number the files, and optionally bake in each image’s adjustments. Find Similar and Organize were removed from that menu.
- Images dropped on the Canvas board from Explorer, a browser or another application now appear at once; the board previously seemed frozen until you clicked back into Klay.
- The Canvas tab could stutter while panning, zooming and dragging images even though the frame rate read high; it now redraws without waiting on the 3D viewport, and the FPS readout counts the frames actually shown.
- Shortly after a large scene was opened, the ray-traced preview and Render could restart from the first sample several times and pause the app for a few seconds each time; they now keep converging.
- Cancelling a render could crash Klay.
- Tessellating across the rim of a Laser or Fill cap no longer opens a gap along that rim.
- With depth-of-field autofocus on, the ray-traced preview kept restarting and never finished; the focus now holds while the camera is still.
- In large scenes, the ray-traced preview could replace heavy models with a few large triangles after a while; models now always keep their full shape.
- Exporting a loaded recording wrote the wrong frame, or damaged geometry; it now writes the frame shown in the viewport.
- An object very close to a light cast no shadow; the distance at which this happened grew with the size of the scene and the light’s range.
- Split loose parts no longer lowers the frame rate while the dialog is open on a very dense mesh.
- After Combine selected, the fill of a Laser cut was treated as a separate part by Split loose parts, and a brush could open a crack along the cut edge; the combined mesh now keeps the fill connected.
- Clicking outside the outliner’s search field did not end typing in it, so shortcuts stayed blocked until Escape was pressed; a click anywhere else now returns the keyboard to the viewport and keeps the search.
- The colour set on a group was barely visible on its card; it is now twice as strong.
- Tags added to images on the canvas were not kept; they now work and are saved with the canvas board of each scene, not shared with other scenes.
- On the canvas, opening the Space preview on an image with adjustments applied those adjustments to every image browsed after it; each image now shows only its own adjustments.
- Searching the canvas by colour found no images; the colour filter and the colour match in Find now return the images that contain the chosen colour.
- On a locked camera, such as an imported camera with an image plane, only the left mouse button panned the view; the middle button now pans it too.
- In the Select tool’s Vertex, Edge and Face modes, a selection stroke, marquee, Grow, Shrink, Invert, Select all or Select none could not be undone; Undo now steps back through each selection change.
- After many Laser cuts on a large model, Undo could stop before returning to the original shape; it now steps back through every cut.
- With Topology reach, a large brush could affect a separate part lying close to the surface, such as an eyeball under an eyelid; it now stays on the connected surface.
- Topology reach stopped working on models with UV seams after a Move stroke or an Undo.
- Settings in a mask section promoted to the tool card, such as Reach, could not be changed from the card.
- In Unlit shading, the clay stamp preview and the Primitive tool’s placement preview were still drawn with full lighting; they now follow the Unlit shading.
- The UV view now uses the viewport background colour set in Settings > Theme instead of a fixed dark background.
- In VR, holding the second controller’s trigger did not switch to Smooth while a clay brush was in invert mode.
- After a Laser cut or a Fill, the rest of a quad mesh was displayed and smoothed as triangles; it now keeps its quads, including after Undo and Redo.
- File > New and Open did not return all of the previous scene’s video memory, particularly after a ray-traced preview or after deleting clay layers; the memory is now released.
- In VR, the first clay layer of a new scene could appear far from the grid; it now appears at the centre of the grid, and later layers appear in front of you after you move or scale the scene.
- In ray tracing, a light placed inside a Water object no longer makes the water glow as if it were clear; its light is absorbed and scattered like the rest of the water.