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Layers and generated passes

Direct paint stays compact. Form Gradient and AO remain editable layers.

Know which tools paint directly, which create layers, and how to regenerate or detach a procedural pass.

6 min read

On this page

  1. 01Direct paint tools
  2. 02Generated layers
  3. 03Regenerate or detach

01

Direct paint tools

Surface Presets, Edge Presets, Block Light & Shade, and Shade Brush edit the selected ordinary paint layer. They do not create one layer for every application.

  • Each completed application is one native Undo or Redo edit.
  • Duplicate the paint layer first when you intentionally want a separate experimental copy.
  • Choose the correct layer before applying a Surface, Edge, or Block Light pass.

02

Generated layers

Form Gradient and Ambient Occlusion create normal full-size TextureLayer objects with a stored recipe. They are static raster layers, not live effects.

  • Geometry, UV, or source-paint changes appear only after explicit regeneration.
  • Regeneration stays at the layer's existing position.
  • AO reads only the composite below itself, so it does not repeatedly darken its own output.

03

Regenerate or detach

  1. 1

    Select the generated layer

    Choose the Form Gradient or AO layer in Blockbench's Layers panel.

  2. 2

    Edit the recipe

    Open Edit Generated Pass, change the settings, and regenerate the same layer.

    Image > Filters > Edit Generated Pass

  3. 3

    Detach when finished

    Detach Generated Pass to Pixels keeps the bitmap but removes the procedural recipe. Detaching is undoable.

    Image > Filters > Detach Generated Pass to Pixels