Layers & scenes on nodes
Promote a node into its own layer, assign it to a scene, or set how far a light reaches, all from the node itself.
By default, 3D objects share one scene and sort by depth, and 2D shapes stack in front of it. Any node can be promoted into its own layer, assigned to a scene, or, if it is a light or a force, told how far its influence reaches.
Promote a node into its own layer
A 3D node lives inside the shared scene and is sorted against everything else by depth. Promote it and its content lifts out into its own flat layer that sits on top of the scene, composited rather than depth-tested.
Three controls then decide how it sits in the stack:
Z-index is the stacking order. Higher sits in front.
Blend mode is how the layer combines with what is behind it. 56 of them, starting at Normal (Over), through Add, Multiply, Screen and Overlay to the dodge/burn, HSL, difference and depth families.
Opacity is how much of the layer shows through, from fully transparent to solid.
Demote the node again and it drops back into the shared 3D scene, depth-tested with everything else. Promote for compositing behaviour, a glow on Add, a logo always on top, a tint on Multiply, rather than true 3D depth sorting.
Track mattes
A track matte lets one layer punch a hole in another, or reveal it through a shape. Give a layer a matte source, then choose how the matte is read. Alpha uses the matte's transparency as the cutout. Luma uses its brightness instead, white revealing and black hiding.
Flip invert to swap what is kept and what is cut. Turning the matte off restores the plain layer. A whole 3D scene can carry a matte too, masking the entire scene's composite the same way.
Scenes
Beyond the default shared scene, nodes can be grouped into separate 3D scenes. Each non-default scene renders as its own self-contained unit through its own camera, then takes its place in the stack alongside promoted layers.
Assign to a scene sets which scene a node belongs to.
Active scene is the scene new visual nodes land in as you create them.
Scene camera picks which camera each scene renders through.
Scene stack position sets where the whole scene floats in the shared stack, so a 3D scene can sit above and below promoted layers, not only behind everything.
Neither number has to be typed. A Layer Manager node draws a grip on each of its tap rows, and dragging a row up or down rewrites the whole stack for you: a promoted layer's z-index and a scene's stack position sit on the same axis, so one drag can move a scene past a layer or the other way. The Layer Manager panel's own drag does exactly the same thing, from the same rules.
Separate scenes cover picture-in-picture, a 3D inset over a 2D background, and rendering the same objects through two cameras at once.
Influencer reach
Lights, force fields, and environment lighting are influencers. They act on other things rather than drawing themselves, and each carries a scope that sets how far it reaches:
Global affects everything in the project, across every scene.
Scene affects only its own scene, so a light lights the scene it lives in and nothing else. This is the default for lights and force fields.
Granular affects exactly the scenes you tick, and no others.
Environment lighting is the exception: it starts on Global, so a scene with no lights of its own is never fully black.
Scope is what keeps a stage light out of a picture-in-picture inset, and what lets one key light wash across every scene.
A new scene that looks unlit is seeing only its own lights. Add a light to that scene, or widen an existing light's scope.
A promoted layer has no scene identity, so per-scene influence never reaches it. Only a Global influencer lights a promoted layer.