How To Turn Off Backface Culling In Blender 3.1.2

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Backface culling in Blender 3.1.2 hides polygon faces pointing away from the camera to speed up viewport rendering. If you want to see every side of your mesh, this guide shows you how to turn off backface culling in Blender 3.1.2 quickly.

It only takes a few clicks. The setting lives in two places, and which one you need depends on what your doing.

What Backface Culling Actually Does

Every polygon has two sides. One side faces the camera, the other faces away. Backface culling tells Blender to skip drawing the side that faces away.

This saves GPU work. On heavy scenes, it keeps the viewport smooth.

But it can also confuse you. A mesh can look like it has holes when it doesn’t. You rotate the view and suddenly faces vanish.

That is normal. The faces are still there. Blender is just not drawing them.

  • Speeds up viewport drawing
  • Hides faces pointing away from you
  • Does not delete or change geometry
  • Can make open meshes look broken

How To Turn Off Backface Culling In Blender 3.1.2

There are two main spots for this setting. One is per material. The other is a viewport shading option. Most people want the material one.

Method 1: Turn It Off In Material Settings

This is the setting that affects how your object renders and displays. It is the one most users mean.

  1. Select your object in the viewport.
  2. Open the Properties panel on the right side.
  3. Click the Material Properties tab. It looks like a checkered sphere.
  4. Scroll down to the Settings section.
  5. Find the checkbox labeled Backface Culling.
  6. Uncheck it.
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Thats it. The hidden faces should appear right away. If you have multiple materials on one mesh, you need to do this for each one.

You can also do it from the Shader Editor. Select the Principled BSDF node, open the sidebar with N, and look under the Settings tab. The same checkbox is there.

Method 2: Turn It Off In Viewport Shading

This method changes the viewport display only. It does not touch materials or exports.

  1. Look at the top right of the 3D viewport.
  2. Click the small arrow next to the shading mode icons.
  3. The Shading panel opens.
  4. Find the Backface Culling checkbox under the Settings area.
  5. Uncheck it.

Note that this option only shows in Solid mode for some versions. In Material Preview and Rendered mode, the material setting takes over.

Method 3: Check The Overlays Menu

Sometimes the face orientation overlay is what is confusing you. It is not the same as culling, but it looks similar.

  • Click the Overlays dropdown at the top of the viewport
  • Look for Face Orientation
  • Turn it off if it is on

Blue faces mean normals point out. Red faces mean they point in. If you see red, your normals are flipped. That is a different problem from culling.

Why Your Faces Still Disappear

You unchecked the box but faces still hide. Here are the common reasons.

Flipped Normals

Normals are the direction a face points. If they are flipped, the face may still render wrong.

  1. Go into Edit Mode with Tab.
  2. Select all with A.
  3. Press Shift plus N to recalculate normals.
  4. Or open Mesh, Normals, Recalculate Outside.
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Multiple Materials

Each material has its own culling checkbox. If your mesh has five materials, you have five boxes to uncheck. Miss one and part of the mesh still hides faces.

Wrong Object Selected

You might be editing the material of a different object. Check the material name and the object name in the outliner. This trips up alot of people.

Backface Culling In Solid Mode Vs Rendered Mode

Blender treats these two modes differently. Knowing the difference saves time.

  • Solid mode uses the viewport shading option
  • Material Preview and Rendered modes use the material setting
  • Exports like FBX and OBJ follow the material setting
  • Game engines often apply culling on their own

So if you plan to export the model, the material checkbox matters most. The viewport one is just for your eyes.

Quick Tips For Blender 3.1.2 Users

A few small things make this smoother.

  • Use the search menu with F3 and type “backface” to jump straight to the option
  • Save your startup file if you always want culling off
  • Duplicate materials keep the same setting, so fix one before copying
  • Check both the material and the viewport if you still see issues

The F3 search trick is the fastest route. It finds the operator no matter where it hides in the menus.

When You Should Keep It On

Culling is not always the enemy. It has real uses.

  • Checking for flipped normals on game assets
  • Speeding up heavy scenes on weak hardware
  • Previewing how a model looks in a game engine
  • Spotting open edges on closed meshes
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If your model is meant for a game, leaving it on during modeling helps you catch problems early. Just remember it is a view setting, not a fix.

Final Thoughts

Turning off backface culling in Blender 3.1.2 takes seconds once you know where to look. The material settings checkbox is the main one. The viewport shading option is the backup.

If faces still vanish, check your normals and your material count. Those two cause most of the leftover problems.

Now you can model with full visibility and no surprise holes in your mesh.