Manage Large Scenes With the Hierarchy

This tutorial is about working inside large scenes, not exporting them.

As a scene grows, the Hierarchy becomes the main tool for selecting objects, organizing structure, hiding distractions, and keeping the scene manageable while you edit.

Why This Matters

A large scene becomes difficult to manage when everything has to be found and edited visually in the viewport.

The Hierarchy solves that by turning the scene into a structured list you can navigate directly.

Use it when the scene becomes too large, crowded, or layered to manage only from the Scene View.

What The Hierarchy Is For

The Hierarchy is located in the left panel of the Scene page.

It shows all objects in the currently open asset as a structured list.

Use it to:

• Select objects.
• Organize scene structure.
• Control visibility.
• Manage complex scenes more easily.

The larger the scene becomes, the more important the Hierarchy becomes.

Selection And Inspection

The Hierarchy is often used together with the Inspector.

Select an object in the Hierarchy to inspect and edit its properties in the Inspector.

This is especially useful once the scene is too large to work from the viewport alone.

For example, selecting an object from the Hierarchy makes it easier to find and edit objects that are hidden behind other objects, too small to click comfortably, or difficult to identify visually.

Parent-Child Structure

Each asset contains an object hierarchy.

That hierarchy is a tree structure, and objects can contain child objects.

Parent-child relationships help with:

• Organization
• Shared transformations
• Shared visibility control
• Cleaner scene structure

Grouping related objects under shared parents makes a large scene easier to understand.

For example, several parts of one prop, building module, or scene section can be grouped under a shared parent object.

Reordering And Reparenting

You can drag objects in the Hierarchy to change their place in the structure.

Depending on where you drop them, they are either:

• Reordered above or below another object.
• Parented under another object.

This is one of the main ways to shape the scene into a structure that is easier to navigate.

Use reordering when the object order is unclear.

Use reparenting when objects belong together and should be managed under the same parent.

Visibility Control

The Hierarchy also lets you show or hide objects.

This is useful when:

• Isolating one part of a scene
• Reducing distraction while editing
• Focusing on overlapping or crowded content
• Temporarily hiding finished areas
• Checking structure without unrelated objects in the way

Hiding an object does not remove it.

It only removes it from view until you show it again.

Object Layers

At the top of the Hierarchy, Foxel provides Object Layers.

Object Layers become useful in larger scenes where you want to organize scene content into broader categories and control visibility more efficiently.

Use Object Layers when the scene becomes too broad to manage comfortably as one long object list.

For example, you might use Object Layers to separate environment pieces, props, helpers, references, cameras, or other scene categories.

Good Practices

As scenes grow, these habits help:

• Use clear object names.
• Group related objects under shared parents.
• Keep the hierarchy tidy as the asset grows.
• Use visibility to reduce distraction.
• Use Object Layers when the scene becomes too broad to manage comfortably as one list.
• Clean up unused or temporary objects when they are no longer needed.

A tidy Hierarchy does not need to be over-organized.

It only needs to make the scene easier to understand and edit.

What To Remember

• The Hierarchy is the main management tool for large scenes.
• It helps with selection, structure, and visibility.
• Select objects in the Hierarchy to edit them in the Inspector.
• Parent-child relationships make scenes easier to work in.
• Dragging lets you reorder and reparent objects.
• Visibility controls help reduce distraction.
• Object Layers help manage larger categories of content.