A Beginner’S Guide To Blender’S Clipping Border Feature And How To Disable It

The clipping border is a feature in Blender that allows users to hide or reveal parts of the 3D scene. It defines the boundaries of the visible area. While useful in some cases, the default clipping border can also cause problems.

Disabling the clipping border completely gives full access to the entire scene. This allows for more flexibility when animating objects and cameras. There are also alternative methods to manage visibility without fully disabling clipping.

Understanding Blender’s Clipping Feature

Definition of clipping in 3D graphics

Clipping refers to the practice of removing or hiding geometry in a 3D scene that is outside of a defined boundary. Any graphics rendered outside of the clipping area are not drawn. This helps optimize performance by ignoring unseen content.

The clipping border in Blender creates a cut-off point where objects will disappear from view in the 3D Viewport. It defines both a near clipping plane and a far plane. Anything positioned beyond those two planes will be clipped, or hidden.

Purpose of clipping border in Blender

The main purpose of Blender’s clipping border is to cull unseen objects for faster viewport rendering. Clipping managed visibility also makes it easier to focus on specific areas when working. Without clipping borders, all objects would always be drawn even if far outside of the current view.

Additionally, the default clipping values help avoid rendering errors caused by a camera viewing too near or too far within a scene. So sane clip limits are useful for general content creation tasks.

Default clipping border settings

By default, Blender sets clipping distances from 0.01 BU (Blender Units) to 10 million BU. This represents the closest and furthest area that is visible. Objects placed beyond either boundary disappear.

A very small near clip value avoids visual glitches with extreme close-ups. The large default far clip accounts for sizes of large scenes. Most simple scenes fit well inside the default range.

Locating the Clipping Options

Clipping settings in the Viewport Properties panel

The current values for the clipping border are configurable in the Properties panel while viewing the 3D Viewport workspace. In the View section, Clip Start and End parameters control the clipping distance values.

When the Auto Perspective option is enabled, changing the camera view will automatically adjust Start and End values. Disabling this links the camera but allows manual clip adjustment.

Changing clip start and end values

Changing the Start and End values narrows or expands what is visible in 3D space. Setting larger values reveals objects further away. Smaller values progressively hides more content by pulling the near plane closer.

Adjustments make an immediate difference. Sometimes objects can temporarily disappear then reappear again as clips change. Useful for quick tests but manipulating raw values lacks precision.

Problems Caused by the Clipping Border

Clipping of objects in the viewport

The most obvious issue with clipping planes is objects accidentally getting hidden when moved beyond visible area bounds. A model may spontaneously vanish if translated too far from origin without adjusting clips.

Not being able to see objects makes them difficult to select or edit. Progressively clipping out elements rarely desired outcome. Easy lose track of content that gets clipped after being moved.

Limitations when animating scenes

More seriously, default clipping gets in the way of animating cameras and objects. Fixed clips limit how close or far a camera can view a scene. Trying to animate beyond visible area makes whole shot disappear.

Same problem when translating objects over time. They unnaturally get clipped if passing boundary thresholds during motion. Hard animate with this distracting visual interference.

Disabling the Clipping Border

Setting the clip end value to a high number

The easiest way to fully disable clipping is by increasing the End value to an extremely large number. This effectively pushes the far clip plane “out to infinity” for an unlimited visible range.

Ten million units OK for most scenes but higher values can prevent floating point overflows. Try values like 10^18 or 10^30 to set a distant clip impossible to exceed. Just keep Start value sane.

Clipping option alternatives for animation

Fully disabled clipping not always best for all animations though. Subtle glitches can occur when viewing infinitely far. Some alternative to try:

• Expand End to fit scene needs but keep minor Start clip value
• Re-enable clipping and expand range when required only
• Use camera Shift+F shortcut to focus and center views
• Manually lock camera to visible layer when animating motion

Test which strategy works for each project needs. Both clipped and unclipped views have certain advantages.

Showing Hidden Objects Again

Resetting clip values to show clipped content

If items get unexpectedly clipped, try resetting Start and End values back to default 0.01 and 10,000,000 units. Then search the scene to rediscover and redisplay any missing elements.

Also check Viewport Shading popup for Hidden Wireframe option. This helps reveal objects hidden behind solid surfaces or outside standard clip area.

Using layers to manage hidden objects

Layers are an alternative way to control visibility of objects and collections without touch clips. Discrete per-layer options avoid need to change global visible range.

Good to assign objects likely to animate far away to higher layers kept invisible normally. Toggle layer when need to reveal objects that animate beyond ideal clipping area.