Tool Properties dock

The Tool Properties dock is the thin row docked under the View Panel (above the time slider). It shows options for the currently active toolbox tool. Its contents change as you switch tools.

Why a dedicated dock?

The Channel Box edits the selection. The Properties pane edits the active placement in depth. The Tool Properties dock edits the active tool's configuration: size of the brush nib, snap distance for the Move tool, stroke smoothness for the Pen, etc. Each surface stays focused.

Per-tool contents

The dock changes per tool. The most common configurations:

Select / Lasso / Paint Select

• Selection mode: Replace / Add / Subtract / Intersect.
• Selection through obscured: on / off.

Move

• Snap distance (pixels).
• Snap kind: Grid / Vertex / Pivot / Edge.
• Axis lock visualization on / off.

Rotate

• Snap angle (degrees).
• Axis (XYZ in 3D; Z-only in 2D).
• Local vs World gimbal.

Scale

• Uniform vs per-axis.
• From pivot vs from bounding box center.

Brush / Erase

The richest dock. See Brush > Quick start:

• Engine dropdown (6 engines).
• Preset palette (30 built-ins + your saved presets).
• Size slider (with pressure curve preview).
• Opacity slider (with pressure curve preview).
• Color picker (with eyedropper).
• Spacing.
• Texture overlay strength.
• Smoothing.

Pen / Bezier

• Smoothing.
• Pressure → width mapping (on / off).
• Auto-close path.

Eyedrop

• Sample size (1px / 3x3 / 5x5).
• Tileable mode (samples a square and tiles it).
• Add to brush palette on pick.

Landmark

• Pair count remaining (typically 6 for butterflies).
• Snap to nearest vertex on the model side.

Pin / unpin

The dock's pin button keeps its current width visible even when switching to a tool that needs less room. Useful when juggling between Brush and Move during painting.

Hide

Window > Toggle Tool Properties Dock hides it. Most users keep it on for painting and brushwork; collapse it when working on pure modeling so the View Panel takes the full height.