3D Viewport Clip (camera clip)

Alongside many other aspects of newer versions of Blender, what was previously the (View ») Properties panel, the location of the 3D Views camera settings, have been reorganised as part of what is now called the Sidebar. Here the distance values can be set to accommodate larger or smaller working environments that can otherwise cause the view to clip when too far away from, or too close to, the object of focus.

Design note: view (camera) clipping is ostensibly a real-time rendering optimisation that places a hard limit on the amount of scene data the system renders; beyond a certain point, the clip plain, nothing is shown, which reduces overheads often associated with processing and rendering everything that might otherwise be shown unnecessarily. 3D View scene clip differs from Camera object clipping (set in Object Data Properties when individual Camera entities are selected).

Blender scene scaling, the size objects appear in relation to the view, it relatively small and can mean some content clipping when too big or too small. Use the Sidebar settings to fix this.

Clip Settings

The cameras clip distances for the 3D View, the start (how close) and end (how far) points, are set in the Sidebar, accessed from the View menu upper-left. To access select View then Sidebar – View » Sidebar – or use the N shortcut key (toggles the Sidebar hidden/visible).

Design note: the Sidebar is essentially the (View ») Properties toolbar.

The Sidebar is accessible from the View menu (upper-left of the 3D View) where Properties used to be available – Properties is now Sidebar.

The 3D View Sidebar (formally Properties) opens with the last used tab shown (defaults to Item when accessed for the first time).

Clip Start/End

With the Sidebar open, to adjust the views camera settings click the View tab, and in the View subsection, adjust Clip Start (default 0.1m) to change how close objects can be to the camera before rendering is clipped, and End (default 1000m) to modify how distant the far plain is before clipping the scene and object within.

Design note: if Clip Start is set too low objects can appear inverted because the inside meshes may be visible – as a rule of thumb if End has to be adjusted s too will Clip Start.

Objects can appear inside out if Clip Start is set too low relative to End.

The 3D View Sidebar (formally Properties) opens with the last used tab shown (defaults to Item when accessed for the first time).

Setting the 3D Views clip distance from the Sidebar