Camera, slices and view options

Open the View tab below the viewport. Camera, slicing and display settings are shown directly in this tab. Choose Slice to show exactly one cell-thick layer, or Split to hide one side of a plane. Select X, Y or Z and set the index by typing, using arrow keys, or dragging the number field sideways. Z is vertical; axis directions stay in world coordinates when the camera rotates.

Slice retains cells at the selected coordinate.
In Split, + hides the positive side and retains coordinates less than or equal to the plane.
In Split, − hides the negative side and retains coordinates greater than or equal to the plane.
Choose Full in the View tab to restore the complete view.

These are viewing controls, not simulation operations. Hidden cells continue evolving and influencing visible neighbors. Capture, save and publication retain the complete volume. Clipping does not make a project dirty. Opening another project resets clipping; recompiling the current project preserves it.

Picking uses the same visibility predicate as rendering, so an inspector click can reach the newly exposed interior. Brush and erase footprints exclude hidden cells. In single-layer mode, the brush targets the selected plane, including gaps. Changing the slice clears the previous selection and its highlight. Uniform Opacity remains available to inspect occluded cells.

Moving away from the scene center reveals a floating Center scene button. It centers the scene without changing zoom or orientation, then disappears. Rotating or zooming alone does not show the button.

Focus the viewport by clicking it (right-click avoids applying a paint tool), or Tab to it. Hold W/S to move forward/back along the camera heading and A/D to strafe left/right. Q/E moves down/up in world Z; Shift triples movement speed. Movement uses elapsed frame time and stops on focus loss, window blur, hidden tabs and viewport teardown. Typing or shortcuts in the source editor do not move the camera. Center scene recenters the viewing region while preserving zoom and orientation.

Sideways scrolling rotates around the scene; vertical scrolling zooms. Trackpad gestures use their dominant axis to avoid incidental zoom during rotation. Wheel line/page units are normalized. Right-drag still controls yaw and pitch.

Navigation changes only ephemeral camera state. Renderer and picking projections retain fractional camera coordinates for smooth motion, while voxel storage alone rounds to whole-cell bounds. Slice planes remain fixed in world coordinates.

Infinite grid

View → Infinite grid toggles a reference plane. The default view uses the XY plane at Z=0; a slice aligns it with the selected axis and coordinate. Cyan/violet axes and an origin marker help with orientation. The lattice is a viewer aid, not a floor or simulation boundary, and it does not appear in published previews.

Uniform opacity

The Uniform Opacity switch below slicing overrides cell opacity for viewing. Enable it to reveal the Opacity slider. Disabling it restores the simulation’s visual opacity and keeps the slider value for next time. It does not change saved cell values or baked state.

Computation feedback

During an expensive tick, Studio displays the last completed scene, elapsed time, phase number/count and Cancel tick. Camera navigation and inspection stay available. Phase counts are not estimates of remaining time or completed cells.

The rendering region is finite (currently 128 × 128 × 64 cells). Centering the scene cannot fit an arbitrarily large world inside it. Move the camera to explore other regions, and use slices to reveal occluded cells.