Understand Text, Geometry, and Style

Text Studio Owns the Message

Edit content, font, typography, reveal, effects, and placement through Text Studio and the active text backend. Text Studio selects a compatible backend automatically; Text Studio 3D follows its content and font, then produces dimensional geometry. There is no separate 3D font choice on the component.

Scramble and other live character substitutions replace the visible extruded letter shapes while preserving the original layout. TextMeshPro and UniText typography remain live: bold, italic, case, Small Caps, tracking, underline, strikethrough, solid colors, and authored gradients continue through the 3D result. Underline and strikethrough become real extruded geometry without turning spaces into visible characters.

UniText World Text

With the optional UniText integrations installed, shaped glyph IDs, ligatures, bidirectional visual order, fallback fonts, and text decorations become animated extrusion when standard TTF or OTF outline data is available. Font-size and automatic layout changes rebuild immediately at the new scale. The separate UniText 3D sample integration includes inspectable Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew lettering with package-owned materials. With UniText Folio 3.20.0 or newer and the Math Profile component, mathematical notation becomes solid 3D as well; see UniText under Optional Integration Installation.

A Style Owns the Look

A 3D Style contains one or more ordered geometry layers. Start from a curated style and inspect its real output before applying or duplicating it. Styles own geometry and surface recipes; Text Studio still owns the message, typography, reveal, effects, and placement.

Compare Styles Without Changing the Scene

Style Compare uses an isolated preview, so browsing never creates temporary lettering in the open scene. Use Prev and Next or the synchronized dropdown to move through candidates, then choose Apply only when the comparison has earned a scene change. The current and candidate viewports use the same text and framing and show an effort and geometry summary beside the visual result.

Enable Keep Materials when geometry is the decision and the current authored materials should stay fixed on both candidates. Disable it when the preset's complete material treatment is part of what you are comparing. This distinction prevents a material change from being mistaken for better bevels, depth, contours, or topology.

Placement and Depth Sweep Are Independent

Spatial placement arranges letters through space. A depth sweep bends the extrusion from front to back. A deformer reshapes finished geometry. Keeping these separate makes complex results easier to reason about.

The Geometry Pipeline

A finished result passes through a predictable pipeline: text and shaped glyph outlines, layer selection, contour construction, front and back caps, relief, bevel, body or shell, depth shaping and sweep, contour programs and decorations, deformation, surface mapping and materials, mesh assembly, and output.

Text, font, and semantic glyph identity come from Text Studio and the active backend. A 3D Style describes geometry and surfaces. The compiled style validates that recipe. The renderer builds topology, applies materials, and chooses an output. Runtime visual channels, supported deformers, tint, and visibility can update warmed geometry without repeating every earlier stage.

Shared Style or Detached Local Layers

Style Source offers Inline, Catalog, Theme, and Custom. Inline edits local layers. Catalog follows the style chosen through Browse. Custom assigns an Extrude3DStyle asset directly. Theme follows the nearest enabled Theme Scope or project fallback and the selected Theme Style. Switching source preserves each source's settings and selection.

• Apply changes the current style reference to the selected asset.
• Duplicate creates an independent reusable style asset.
• Make Inline copies the effective shared recipe into the component for local editing. Save as Style creates a reusable Custom asset; Save & Register also adds it to Catalog.
• Reset returns to the product default and removes accidental local complexity.

Editing a shared style affects every object that references it. Editing detached layers affects only that component. Use meaningful style names, keep experimental copies out of production prefabs, and validate at the smallest output size.

Stack, Overlay, and Depth Ownership

Stack places a layer behind the preceding emitted depth. Overlay starts a new depth chain at the front plane. Use Stack for physically layered signs, trims, plates, and strokes that should build backward. Use Overlay for a new foreground treatment that must not inherit the previous depth.

The resolver coordinates bevel ends across a stack so adjacent layers do not all create unnecessary coincident end geometry. Layer Placement adds XY offset and extra depth offset after the layer's own geometry. Use the exploded preview and material-region diagnostic to find interior seams.

Layer Selection and Scope

A layer can address all visible glyphs or a selected character or range, with optional inversion. Per Glyph emits independent glyph entries. Word, Line, and Whole Text collect the selected contours into grouped geometry. Grouped contours enable fitted backings and connected outlines but depend on the complete text and cannot use independent-glyph prewarming.