Outliner | Substance 3D Modeler

The Outliner

The Outliner shows how objects in your scene are organized, and allows you to manage objects in your scene from a single location.

You can open the Outliner from the Top bar.

Manage objects in your scene

The Outliner enables a lot of useful scene management functionality. You can use the Outliner to:

• Select objects in your scene.
• Change your focus directly to a specific object.
• Rearrange objects in your scene by moving them into or out of groups.
• Rename objects.
• Hide or show objects.

Select objects

To select an object from the Outliner, click the object name. If an object is inside a group or container, you may need to use the dropdown to expand the contents of the group so that you can select the object.

If an object is inside a group or container, you will automatically be scoped into that group or container when you select it in the Outliner. This is because Modeler doesn't allow you to select objects if you aren't focused on their direct parent. You can think of a group of objects like a box of cookies; to choose a cookie, you have to open the box. To select an object, you have to open the group.

Focus on an object

You can use the focus and scoping shortcuts while hovering over objects in the Outliner, just like you can while hovering over objects in your scene. To focus on a specific clay layer:

1. Open the Outliner.
2. Hover your cursor over the object.
3. 💻 Use shortcut S to scope into the object.
   🥽 Use SJ↑ to scope into the object.

Rearrange objects

The Outliner both shows the hierarchy of your scene and acts as an easy way to update the hierarchy.

You can move objects into and out of groups by dragging an object to another location in the Outliner. While you're dragging an object, visualizations will show what will happen to the hierarchy if you drop it in a given position.

If you drag an object over a group, the group will be surrounded by an outline to show that releasing will place the object into the group.

If you drag an object over another object, a line will appear above or below the hovered object to show that releasing will place the dragged object above or below the hovered object.

Sometimes it's not possible to put one type of object into a group or container. For example, it's not possible to put a clay object into a primitive container (currently available in the beta). If you drag an object over a group or container where it can't be placed, no visualization appears. If you release the object somewhere that it can't be placed, the hierarchy will remain unchanged.

Rename objects

To rename an object, double-click the name of the object in the Outliner. A text box appears where you can modify the name of the object.

As with all text boxes in Modeler, you can use standard text editing shortcuts such as Ctrl + A, double or triple click to select multiple characters, etc. 

Hide or show objects

The Outliner displays the current visibility status of the objects in your scene. If an object is hidden, a crossed out eye icon displays to the right of the object name in the Outliner.

To toggle the visibility of any object with the Outliner:

1. Hover over the object in the Outliner.
2. Click the eye icon that appears to the right of the object. 

Outliner options

The Outliner has some controls you can use to customize its behavior. These controls are available at the top right of the Outliner panel.

The Expand parents button automatically expands the parents of objects that you focus on in your scene. This makes it easier to find objects in the Outliner while you're working on them in your scene without needing to manually expand groups and containers in the Outliner. Expand parents is on by default.

The settings button has some additional options:

• Expand all: expands all groups and containers in the Outliner so that all objects in your scene are available.
• Collapse all: collapses all groups and containers in the Outliner to simplify the graph.
• Limit visibility to scope: explained below.

Limit visibility to scope is useful in complex scenes. With Limit visibility to scope turned on,  when you focus on an object in your scene,  the Outliner only shows objects that are relevant to that focus such as the parents and direct children of the focused object. This can be useful in complex scenes with many objects, so that you can more easily navigate the Outliner based on your viewport focus.