Blender 2.8: Where is the viewport shading?

At the beginning of this week, we shared an impressive scene made in the upcoming Blender 2.8, showing a toilet scene in Eevee. The real-time render engine of Blender 2.8 is one of the highlights of the new version.

Based on that scene, some readers went to the Blender Builder page to get an experimental version of version 2.8. Right off the bat, they started to struggle with a few fundamental changes, and send me a few questions.

Among the most common is about the Viewport Shading. Where is it in Blender 2.8?

The Viewport shading in Blender 2.7x controls how you see 3d objects in your 3D View window. For instance, you can set the view to Wireframe or Shaded. With hotkeys like Z and SHIFT+Z, you can quickly change between those modes.

Blender 2.79a

By the time you open Blender 2.8 for the first time, it will start with Eevee. And the 3D View header doesn't show anything that looks similar to the Viewport Shading.

Is it somewhere else?

Blender 2.8 (Experimental Build)

In current development versions of Blender 2.8, you won't find a Viewport Shading selector.

Even if you change the renderer to Cycles, you will immediately enter in Render Mode. To see models in wireframe or a simple shaded mode, you have to select the Blender Render. You still won't see a Viewport Shading option, but using the Z key will work.

If you want to test Blender 2.8 and Eevee, you should follow a simple workflow for modeling. Set the renderer to Blender Render and create your 3d models. After you do all modeling tasks, set the render to Eevee to add materials, lights and see your project.

And always remember something fundamental! Blender 2.8 is still under massive development. Things will probably change and evolve until it reaches at least a beta stage.

Architectural modeling with Blender

For those of you interested in architectural modeling, don't forget about our courses on architectural modeling with Blender. We will show you how to create 3d models for architecture in Blender.

In one of the courses you will even learn how to build parametrical models:

• Course about architectural modeling with Blender
• Course about parametric modeling for architecture with Blender

Are you starting with Blender? We also have the Blender basics for architecture, which is free.