New
MatCap from an image
A MatCap material can now use an imported image instead of the procedural look. A pastille at the top of the MatCap section switches between Procedural and Images; in Images mode, Browse loads a PNG, PSD, EXR or HDR file, with Rotation, Flip Y, Intensity and the same Color controls as the procedural look (posterize, hue, saturation, contrast, brightness, gamma). Sixteen-bit and floating-point files keep their full tonal range, so Blender-style matcaps read without banding. The matcap also renders in the raytracer, matching the viewport.
Follow creases
Follow creases lays the edges of a tessellating stroke along the direction the surface bends, so the triangles form rows that follow cuts, folds and ridges instead of an even zig-zag. Along a fold the triangles stretch, which usually leaves fewer of them. On a sharp crease the vertices slide only along the line. Crease strength sets how strongly the edges follow the bend and how many more edges the bends receive; flat areas keep their density.
Export and import brushes
Export in the Brush tab saves the current preset, with its current settings and icon, as a .klaybrush file in a folder you choose. Import adds a .klaybrush file to the matching brush list (Clay, Stamp, Poly or Mask) and selects it; a name already in use gets a number. An alpha image is not included in the file. The preset buttons now sit on two rows with an icon each, and Copy and Paste settings are in the … menu.
Sidebar on the left
The sidebar can now sit on the left side of the window. Tool dialogs, notices, the viewport action bar and the column's cards move with it, and the bottom toolbar re-fits to the space left over.
16-bit clay
Clay layers can now use 16-bit precision instead of 8-bit, for smoother surfaces and finer detail at about twice the clay memory. The choice applies the next time Klay starts. Existing scenes and clay stamps open in either mode with the same shape.
View and lens in the Viewport HUD
The Viewport HUD can show the camera you are looking through and its projection. When the view sits on an axis, for example after snapping in orthographic mode, the line names it instead: Front, Back, Left, Right, Top or Bottom. A separate Lens line shows the focal length in millimetres, or the frame height in orthographic mode. View is on by default; Lens is off.
Pan speed
Pan speed sets how fast the view pans, next to Orbit speed and Zoom speed. At 1.00x the surface stays under the pointer, as before. Absolute trackball keeps its own value.
Invert stroke with Alt
Invert stroke with Alt makes Alt + drag invert the brush instead of Ctrl, as in ZBrush. The other Ctrl shortcuts are unchanged. It needs a Navigation key other than Alt, for example V.
Radial Grid and Ground Disk saved with the scene
Each scene now keeps its own Radial Grid and Ground Disk settings: colours, opacity, rings, thickness, Y offset, visibility and scale. Set as default in each card sets the values that new scenes open with, and Reset returns the card to them. Your current grid and disk become the default after the update.
Improved
Retopology rebuilt
Retopology has two modes, chosen at the top of the dialog. Smooth, the default, produces a closed, all-quad mesh whose edge loops follow the main edges and large forms of the sculpt, such as hat brims, cuffs and the rims of a base, and keeps thin parts such as a staff or a cane; it offers Target faces (35k by default), Smoothing and Adaptive, which places smaller quads where the surface curves, and uses all processor cores. Sharp keeps more of the sculpted surface and its creases, with the settings of the previous version, and now also returns quads only, with no triangles or n-gons. The progress bar shows five plain steps, from Reading your sculpt to Finishing.
Curvature sizing refines the sharpest line
With Sizing set to Curvature, tessellation now places its finest edges on the sharpest part of the form, such as the bottom of a knife cut, including the edges that run along it. The edge size grows gradually away from it instead of forming a wide, uneven band.
Brush cursor and tessellation grid
The density grid's colours, opacity and wire fade can now be set in Settings, for brushes with tessellation on as well as for the Tessellation tool. When Size follows pen pressure, the grid now ends at the light-touch ring, so the dotted full-press ring stays visible. The Clay brush's cursor now uses the brush cursor colours and shows the same pressure rings as the other brushes.
Viewport settings cards
The cards opened from the viewport capsule (Symmetry, Display, Visibility, Wireframe, Stroke Sound, Focus and Raytracing) now share one panel-style card that follows the theme's panel colour and corner radius. Display settings are sorted into Render, Shadows, Mesh and HUD tabs, and related settings sit together in groups. In Symmetry, Topology is a choice in the Mirror across row beside Object, World, Bounds and Custom.
Undo for light edits
Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y now undo and redo light edits: moving and aiming a light, exposure, intensity, colour and Kelvin, area and spot size, sky time and direction, and adding, duplicating or deleting lights. Each drag is one step, in order with your sculpt strokes. This covers the Lantern tool, its card, the Lighting tab, hold-S and the VR light grab.
Grab from outside the model
A grab-type poly brush, such as Grab, Move or Snake Hook, pressed with its centre off the model now moves everything under the brush circle, through the whole model, as a Silhouette grab. Before, the press did nothing. The setting is on by default and can be turned off with Outside stroke is silhouette.
Orbit and zoom around the point you click
With Orbit around mouse point on, the point under the pointer is picked when an orbit, pan or zoom starts, and zooming now moves toward that point instead of the centre of the view. Switching objects with V, by click or by hovering, also sets that point, with either Orbit around mouse point or Orbit around stroke point on. With Orbit around stroke point, a click on any object, selected or not, also sets it.
Undo and Redo in the Shortcuts tab
Undo and Redo are listed in the Shortcuts tab as fixed shortcuts. Other actions can no longer be assigned to Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z.
Smooth / Faceted shortcut
Smooth / Faceted shading can be assigned a key in the Shortcuts tab. Each press switches the viewport between smooth and faceted normals. It has no key by default.
Show terminal
A new setting opens a window that shows Klay's log live while it runs, which helps when reporting a problem. It takes effect the next time Klay starts, and closing that window also closes Klay.
Confirm before overwriting a brush preset
Saving a brush preset that already exists now asks for confirmation before its saved settings are replaced. A new preset, such as a fresh duplicate, saves without asking.
Search your sculptures, and a Start something new card
The Sculptures page of the welcome screen has a search field. It shows only the sculptures whose name or folder contains what you type, and how many match. When the list is empty, the page shows a Start something new card that creates a new scene.
Exhibitions: curated order, featured work and latest from every artist
On view now follows the gallery's curated order and opens on the featured work, shown as a wide banner. New in the Exhibitions tab now lists the most recent works from all artists, newest first, including works shared from an artist's own page. The curated selection is now called On view. A search field finds works by title, artist or number, and Featured artists and All artists can be searched by name, city or tagline, in the same places as on the website.
Drag a material from its name
In the Material tab, a material can now be dragged from its name as well as from its thumbnail. The thumbnail enlarges slightly when the pointer is over the row, and while dragging it is shown raised with a shadow.
Icons on save, load, import and export notices
The notices shown while saving or loading a scene and while importing or exporting a model now start with an icon, like the other notices above the toolbar.
Export file names follow the outliner
The export dialog now suggests the object's name as shown in the outliner, such as Head.obj, for every format. A group export uses the group's name.
Save a brush as a new preset
Save as in the Brush tab saves the current settings as a new preset under a name you enter, for Clay, Stamp, Poly and Mask brushes. The preset you started from keeps its own settings, including any unsaved changes.
Fixed
- Tessellation: lowering the Density of a brush in Densify mode had no effect on the surface. Strokes now also reduce the mesh to the Density, as in Adaptive mode.
- Tessellation: on a mesh with UVs, a stroke stopped refining after one level of subdivision even with Max subdivision Off. It now refines to the Density.
- Tessellation: Decimate all left the triangle count unchanged. It now reduces the mesh, also on meshes with UVs, which it keeps. The card reports the result of Subdivide all and Decimate all, or the reason when they cannot run.
- Clay: the Add stamp could leave small square holes scattered over the clay, most often after a large stamp or after erasing an object completely and undoing. The holes no longer appear, and the toolbar stamp now always shows the shape the brush adds.
- Clay: Clay brushes below full Strength, such as the Elastique brushes, now sculpt on an empty layer on the desktop. Before, they added nothing until clay had been laid with the Add stamp.
- An object locked in the outliner could still be moved, rotated and scaled with the Gizmo tool, including by dragging the object itself. A locked object now stays in place, and the Gizmo tool shows a notice instead. In a selection that mixes locked and unlocked objects, only the unlocked ones move.
- Holding Ctrl+Shift to crop no longer shows the Add or Carve stamp for a moment, and after the crop a Clay or paint brush stays the brush it was instead of turning into the Add stamp. Paint brushes never show a stamp.
- With Share size across brushes on, releasing Shift, for example after Shift+D to add a subdivision level, could set the poly brush to the Shift brush's size. The brush now keeps its size.
- Snapping the view with Shift while orbiting no longer changes the brush size when the keys are released, whichever key you release first.
- With Swap Ctrl and Alt on, Ctrl+Z could repeat the last stroke instead of undoing it. Undo and Redo now always use Ctrl, and Reapply last stroke has no shortcut until you assign one.
- Custom navigation no longer disables the built-in mouse gestures. With Orbit on the right button, a right drag on the model still erases the mask, twists with Grab, turns objects in Move and Gizmo, and removes curve dots; on empty space it orbits. With Zoom on Ctrl + right drag, Ctrl+Shift crop, Grab scale, Fill, Zones and Draw Topo work as before. Shortcuts now refuses a navigation chord that would replace Invert stroke, Smooth, Crop or the brush size scrub.
- Clay: the Projector brush can now start its stroke on a polygon mesh. Before, a stroke started on a mesh began on the view's centre plane, or on clay hidden behind the mesh. With Lazy mouse on, the stroke now ends at the depth under the brush rather than under the pointer, so it no longer stays flat.
- In the orthographic view, patches of the model near the edges of the view no longer disappear, and models no longer switch to a lower level of detail too early. Display settings has a separate Ortho threshold, and Cluster threshold is now named Perspective threshold.
- The sidebar tab tooltips no longer appear behind the Camera Monitor.
- Outliner: an open group now leaves space below its last object, so that object no longer sits against the bottom edge of the group.
- Curve tool: a sharp dot now makes a corner on curves with Smooth on. Before, the dot turned square but the curve did not change.
- Material thumbnails of MatCap materials, procedural or image, now show the matcap instead of an incorrect ball.
- Brush > Direction > Angle had no effect while Rotate with the stroke was on. It now turns each alpha print by that amount relative to the stroke, and it reads in degrees. Fixed angle no longer replaces the round brush cursor with the rake bar.
- Import as separate layers now gives one layer per object and per loose part, as the Split tool does, for OBJ, FBX and Alembic files, and keeps quads as quads. Before, a ZBrush OBJ was cut apart along its polygroups, and an FBX or Alembic object made of several parts came in as one layer, and every layer was imported as triangles.
- Ctrl+D no longer moves a new copy by the offset of an earlier duplicate. The offset is repeated only when you duplicate the copy you just moved, within five seconds; otherwise the copy is placed on the original.