Tips For Managing Viewport Clipping Across Multiple Workspaces In Blender

Understanding Clipping Planes in Blender

Clipping planes in Blender refer to the front and back planes that delimit visible geometry in the 3D viewports and final renders. Any geometry outside these clipping distances is cropped from view.

The clipping distances help optimize viewport performance by culling unseen vertices. They also allow artists to crop the scene selectively for tasks like working in detail, isolating objects, and previewing camera framings.

Blender has a global clip start and end value that applies by default across all viewports. The clip start determines the nearest visible geometry, while the clip end sets the farthest visible point. These global values are visible in the Properties panel > View tab.

Clip Start and End Controls

You can modify the clip start and end values through the numeric fields in the View tab. Reducing the clip distances lets you focus on closer details while increasing them shows more of the scene.

There are also shortcut keys for adjusting clipping interactively in the 3D viewports. The shortcuts are:

• Ctrl+B – Drag in viewport to scale clip distance
• Alt+B – Drag clip start plane
• Ctrl+Alt+B – Drag clip end plane

Per-Viewport Clipping Settings

While the global clip values are shared across viewports by default, Blender also allows overriding these settings locally. This means you can have different clipping distances defined per each 3D view.

Independent clipping planes become essential for complex scenes and workflows where you need to focus on closeups of specific objects without affecting the main camera view. We explore this in detail next.

Enabling Different Clipping Distances Per Viewport

Having personalized clip distances for each viewport comes handy when working with dense scenes. For example, you may want to zoom in on a character’s face in one view, while retaining a wide angle perspective of the overall scene in another.

By default, changing the clip values from one viewport switches the setting globally across all open 3D views. However, it is possible to lock clipping locally through a couple of methods.

Lock Camera to View

The first approach is enabling ‘Lock Camera to View’ from the viewport context menu. Right click in a 3D viewport and select this option to lock the camera and clipping range for that specific view. Changes made thereafter won’t propagate to other views.

Local Clipping Plane Panel

The second method is using the local clipping planes panel available individually per viewport. To access this panel, enable the Sidebar region and switch to the ‘Item’ tab within the 3D view sidebar.

This panel contains numeric fields for a custom clip start and end value that override the global settings specifically for the active view. You can also lock the clip distances here via the padlock icon.

Benefits for Multi-Viewport Workflows

Being able to define per-viewport clipping becomes extremely beneficial for:

• Framing scenes – Lockwide shot in one view, detailed closeups in others
• Focusing on specific objects – Isolate objects by clipping others
• Working close up on mesh areas – Model hi-res details unhindered

You no longer need to adjust the global clip values that alter what you see across all viewports when working this way.

Syncing Clipping Planes Across Viewports

There will be situations where you need to sync the per-viewport clipping back to the global scene setting. For example, when shifting focus from closeups to scene wide shots.

Resetting the per-viewport clipping is simple. You can either disable the ‘Lock Camera to View’ option or reset the local clip start/end values back to zeros.

Optionally, if you want to retrieve the clipping from a particular viewport and synchronize it globally:

1. First lock down the target viewport using ‘Lock Camera to View’
2. Access that view’s Item panel and note the custom clip start/end values
3. Enter these values manually into the global View tab settings

This will replicate the active view’s clipping across all viewports. Do remember to disable any per-viewport clipping locks afterwards.

Batch Sync Views to Active Clip

As a shortcut for matching all visible viewports to a target clip setting, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+C.

This keys in the active view’s clip distances globally. Useful for lookdev workflows where you’re toggling between scene wide references and detailed closeups.

Clipping Options for Render Output

For the final rendered output, Blender also gives clipping control options. By default the renderer inherits the scene’s global clip distances.

But similar to per-viewport settings, you can override the render clipping through the Camera data properties. Under the Camera tab, enable ‘Override Scene Clip’ to access custom Start and End fields specifically for this camera angle.

Different Clip Distances for Render vs Viewport

Overriding render clip values can be useful for:

• Setting wider shots for render while modelling close up in viewport
• Cropping rendered bokehs that exceed scene clip distances

The only caveat is that the render previews in viewport will still inherit the UI’s clip values. So there may be discrepancies between final render and viewport preview.

Matching Render Clip to Active View

You can also synchronize the render clip distances to a particular viewport quickly. With the target view active and locked, press Ctrl+Alt+R to copy its clippings onto the render override settings.

This ensures a WYSIWYG render output matching the focus viewport’s camera framing.

Example Setup for Complex Multi-Viewport Clipping

As an example, say you have 4 viewports visible – Left, Right, Bottom, Top orthos + Perspective. You need to work on two assets A and B situated far apart in the scene by closing up to them individually without affecting the main camera.

Here is one approach to manage the clipping planes:

1. Lock perspective view camera to frame the overall scene
2. Set local clip planes for the Left viewport’s camera targeting asset A
3. Define another independent clip range in Right view focused on asset B
4. Bottom and Top orthos retain global scene clipping
5. Hit Ctrl+Alt+C to sync perspective view’s clip if needed

This allows you to toggle between localized clip distances in Left/Right views while retaining both overall scene framing and ortho planes access as needed.

Bonus – Optimization Tips

When working with complex clips across multiple viewports, enable these options for better interactivity:

• Depth Pbuffer – for viewport depth access even when objects are clipped
• Clip Alpha – to fade and minimize clipped geometry draw calls

The independent viewport configurations coupled with these settings will provide the best workflow for managing multi-camera clipping in heavy Blender scenes.