Poly brings scene building, modeling, sculpting, texture painting, and animation into one saved 3D workspace. Users can shape objects, paint through Canvas, and animate their creations alongside imported assets.
Durable Poly Scenes
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Cloud-backed scenes - Users can create durable Poly scenes whose identity, objects, materials, assets, and environment survive refreshes and later visits.
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Automatic saving - Meaningful scene changes save automatically while continuous pointer movement remains responsive.
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Working together - Collaborators receive accepted scene edits while keeping their own selection and camera view. Independent changes can combine without replacing the entire scene.
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Shared awareness - Users can see collaborators' pointers, selections, tools, and cameras, then follow another camera to inspect the same view.
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Save and recovery - Save status distinguishes pending changes from saved work. Retained sessions and retry actions help recover interrupted edits.
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Clean starting scenes - Every new scene starts empty, with reusable materials ready but no objects, lights, cameras, selection, or editing history.
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Dedicated workspace - Each scene opens in a focused editor, while Poly's explorer remains connected to the current space area.
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Document details - Users can inspect location, ownership, dates, and storage usage for the saved scene.
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Document rename - Authors and space owners can rename the linked Poly document without leaving the editor, and the new title appears immediately.
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Protected access - Creating or changing scenes requires eligible Poly access. Viewing and editing also follow the scene's space-area permissions.
A Rebuilt Workspace
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Viewport-first editor - The 3D view remains central while scene structure, tools, properties, assets, and history stay close to the current task.
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Direct editing modes - Move, Rotate, and Scale sit beside object and component selection. Sculpt, Animate, and Paint open their own focused controls.
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Contextual panels - Camera, Tool Settings, Inspector, and Modifiers share one panel area. Materials, Assets, and History use the same space.
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Object and scene inspection - Inspector separates selected-object properties from persistent scene environment controls, even while an object remains selected.
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Scene hierarchy - Users can nest, reorder, group, and select scene content. Clipboard actions cover copy, cut, and paste alongside visibility, locks, duplication, and deletion.
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Multi-object editing - Extended, toggled, and box selections transform together while preserving their relative placement.
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Adaptive controls - Desktop and tablet layouts keep the full rails, while phones use compact drawers for lighter inspection and editing.
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Predictable Escape - Escape cancels the nearest active action first, then unwinds component selection, object selection, editing mode, or camera interaction.
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Personal undo - Undo and redo follow the current editing session across modeling, hierarchy, materials, imports, painting attachments, UV edits, and animation changes.
Build Complete Scenes
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Expanded primitives - Users can create cubes, spheres, planes, and teapots. Cylinders, cones, and toruses add more shapes with relevant topology controls.
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Aimed placement - New objects preview against the grid or a rendered surface before users confirm placement and draw their size.
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Creation settings - Tool Settings presents the relevant base color and geometry choices before a primitive enters the scene.
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Scene lighting - Directional, point, and ambient lights can be authored beside cameras and environment controls.
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Flat and 3D text - Users can create textured flat text or true extruded text, then edit its content and supported font style.
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Sprites and effects - Scenes can include sprites, fire, sparks, smoke, and energy glow alongside ordinary geometry.
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Fast duplication - Alt or Option plus Move creates and places one duplicate as a single undoable action.
Model, Sculpt, And Refine
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Object transforms - Users can move, rotate, and scale through viewport handles, axis constraints, snapping, or exact numeric values.
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Align and distribute - Objects and selected mesh components can align to shared bounds, the active selection, or the world origin, with even spacing along each axis.
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Component editing - Model Mode supports vertex, edge, and face selection with synchronized viewport feedback.
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Topology tools - Extrude, Inset, Bevel, and repeatable Subdivide turn generated and supported imported geometry into editable meshes.
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Mesh cleanup - Clean Up Mesh removes supported redundant flat regions. Merge and Merge by Distance join vertices with direct guidance when geometry cannot be repaired.
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Push Pull - Users can extend supported flat faces through direct dragging or an exact distance.
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Sculpt brushes - Draw, Smooth, Grab, and Flatten shape dense geometry. Controls cover radius, strength, falloff, X symmetry, and subtractive strokes.
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Add and Excavate - Volume brushes grow or remove solid geometry on closed meshes, including while the brush stays still. These operations replace the existing texture layout.
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Sculpt guidance - Poly detects coarse geometry and offers bounded subdivision or direct advice instead of silently ignoring a brush stroke.
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Portable edits - Topology and sculpt edits remain editable when users reopen the scene and can be included in supported exports.
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Shape modifiers - Twist, Bend, Taper, Shear, and Lattice reshape supported meshes without replacing their editable starting shape. Viewport handles make adjustments visible.
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Surface and repeat tools - Modifiers can smooth, subdivide, bevel, thicken, mirror, or repeat geometry. Users can reorder the stack and apply selected results.
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Boolean modeling - Union, Difference, and Intersect combine selected solids with a live preview. Apply keeps the result and cutter changes in one undoable action.
UV Maps And Texture Painting
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Connected UV editing - The split workspace shows the model beside its texture layout. Users can select and transform islands, faces, edges, and individual nodes.
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Unwrap choices - Planar, Box, Cylinder, Sphere, and Smart Unwrap provide starting layouts while existing imported maps remain intact until deliberately changed.
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Seams and layout - Cut, Weld, and Pin control texture seams and fixed nodes. Pack, Normalize, Relax, and UV brushes help arrange and refine islands.
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Canvas painting - Users can create or choose a Canvas texture, then paint directly on the model or in the Paint panel with Brush, Pencil, and Eraser.
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Live texture feedback - Painted strokes appear on the model immediately. Texture edits save automatically, with pending uploads reflected in the save status.
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Imported texture choices - Users can inspect an imported model's original texture or choose a custom texture without discarding its existing UV layout.
Materials And Rendering
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Material library - Presets cover metals, glass, stone, and wood. Lacquer, fabric, rubber, and other reusable styles broaden the surface library.
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Detailed surfaces - Users can adjust base and specular colors, roughness, and metallic response. Generated patterns add bump strength, map scale, and UV transforms.
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Stored textures - Supported Visual Space images and imported base-color textures can remain connected to scene materials.
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Scene environments - Procedural daylight and bundled HDR environments provide persistent lighting and reflections. Users can adjust rotation, intensity, blur, exposure, and background.
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Authored lighting - Directional, point, spot, and ambient lights contribute to supported display and export paths.
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Display modes - Wireframe, Solid, Material, and Rendered Preview show one scene. Each mode changes the editing, material, lighting, shadow, and animation emphasis.
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Selection clarity - Object colors, grayscale Solid view, selected-object outlines, component overlays, and optional face normals improve scene inspection.
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Per-mode grids - Users can keep editing grids visible where useful and hide them for cleaner rendered inspection.
Camera And Viewport Control
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Orbit and FPS - Orbit provides the default shared camera posture, while FPS offers a second explicit way to move through a scene.
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Interaction modes - Select, Orbit, Pan, Zoom, and FPS provide explicit camera choices. Pointer input, keyboard movement, Space-drag panning, and cursors reflect that choice.
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Reliable framing - Fit Scene, Fit Selected, Focus Selected, double-click focus, and Reset recover useful views around transformed content.
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Standard views - Front, left, right, and top directions sit beside perspective and orthographic projection.
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Camera inspection - An interactive orientation gizmo, optional face normals, camera safe frame, and authored camera controls support deliberate composition.
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Render controls - Camera, Render, and Settings tabs separate navigation, saved scene appearance, and session-local graphics quality.
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Viewport PNG - Flat Poly can save the mounted viewport as a local PNG without surrounding editor chrome.
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Performance controls - Quality presets, live resolution choices, actual output diagnostics, and a movable FPS view help users tune demanding scenes.
Assets And Linked Scenes
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Bundled catalog - A categorized asset library offers previews and ready-made content. It spans characters, environments, vehicles, and props. Plants, lighting, and scene pieces are included too.
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Three import sources - Assets can come from another Poly document, an existing Docs 3D file, or a device GLB or embedded GLTF file.
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Durable uploads - Users can upload models from their device or reuse models already stored in Docs.
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Visible progress - Poly reports each import stage from reading and validation through upload, decoding, texture work, and graphics preparation.
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Rich import fidelity - Supported hierarchies, UVs, textures, and materials survive import and reload. Skins, joints, and animation clips remain available too.
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Linked Poly scenes - Another Poly document appears as a protected group whose root can move, rotate, and scale the complete linked scene.
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Make Local - Users can detach a linked scene, restore its original lock states, and continue editing without changing the source document.
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Safer links - Self-links and circular links are rejected, and each imported instance receives independent scene identities.
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Editable imports - Supported static imported geometry converts to a durable Poly mesh when component editing begins.
Animation And Rigging
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Authored animation - Animate opens a resizable timeline for named actions. Users can key object position, rotation, and scale, then play, scrub, or step through frames.
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Auto-key transforms - With Auto-key enabled, completed transforms record keys at the playhead. Keys can move between frames or be removed without replacing the base pose.
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Action management - Users can create, rename, duplicate, retime, loop, and delete actions for the selected object.
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Build a rig - Supported editable meshes can have their own armatures and joint hierarchies, with rest transforms and automatic skin binding.
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Joint editing - Bones and joints can be selected in the viewport, moved as a group, and keyed in Pose mode while the timeline remains visible.
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Imported animation - Original clips stay available for playback and inspection. Separate pose keys can adjust supported imported joints without replacing their source animation.
Scene Export
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GLB and GLTF - Export Scene offers one-file GLB or readable glTF with supported resources embedded.
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Flexible scope - Authors can export the visible scene or selected objects with their descendants and required transform ancestors.
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Geometry choice - Exports can use evaluated modifier results or untouched base meshes without applying modifiers to the document.
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Richer handoff - Supported hierarchy, transforms, UVs, and procedural maps travel with the exported scene. Textures, materials, lights, and cameras can travel too.
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Clear boundaries - The result reports simplifications and omissions instead of silently claiming unsupported content was preserved.
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Authored animation export - Supported Poly object and native-joint tracks export with native skin bindings. Imported source animation and morphs remain a static pose.
Poly In Spatial Mode
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Immersive workspace - On supported Quest hardware, the scene surrounds the user while text and controls stay on separate spatial panels.
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Spatial creation - Users can aim new primitives at the grid or rendered surfaces, preview placement, and confirm their size from spatial controls.
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Immersive editing - Scene selection, Move, Rotate, Scale, and Push Pull sit beside materials, snapping, and object actions.
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Multiple input paths - Supported controllers, hands, a physical mouse, and a physical keyboard can interact with the scene and camera.
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Direct manipulation - Grip and hand gestures support object movement and camera control, including one-hand and two-hand navigation.
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Spatial navigation - Orbit, Pan, Zoom, and FPS share a selected-object or scene-center target. Focus, reset, and speed levels keep movement controllable.
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Shared scene appearance - Flat and spatial views use the same saved scene, environment, and graphics settings.
Current Limits
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Conflicting changes - Simultaneous changes to the same field or dependent geometry can require conflict review. Presence does not reserve an object for editing.
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No meeting stage yet - Poly is not yet available as a collaborative meeting live app.
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Docs handoff - Stored Docs models can be imported, but general Docs views do not yet open linked Poly scenes directly.
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Object rename pending - Poly documents can be renamed, but individual scene-object names remain unchanged.
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Linked snapshot updates - Imported Poly documents do not automatically refresh when their source changes.
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Imported rigs - Source rig structure, skin weights, and animation curves remain protected. Retargeting, inverse kinematics, and curve editing are not available.
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Volume sculpting - Add and Excavate require closed geometry and cannot edit meshes with native skin bindings. Existing texture layouts need attention afterward.
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Import boundaries - Sidecar GLTF resources and some complex files remain unsupported, while animated or morphed topology stays protected.
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Environment uploads - Bundled HDR environments and procedural skies are available, but custom sky uploads and cubemap workflows are not.
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Export boundaries - Imported source clips and morphs do not export as editable animation. Native Quest cannot capture the Poly viewport as PNG yet.
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Experimental Quest support - Immersive editing remains experimental and still requires broader physical headset verification.
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Quest profile - Quest 3 is the only configured headset profile, and browser-based WebXR is not available.
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Headset input limits - Controller and physical-mouse pointer appearance still needs final headset verification.