Stack
Layer blending node with blend modes, opacity, and masking.
Stack
Layer blending node for Blender's Shader Editor.
Stack adds a single node that lets you layer and blend textures with per-layer blend modes, opacity, and masking, similar to layer stacking in Photoshop or composite maps in other 3D tools.
Features
- Multiple layers — add as many layers as you need
- Blend modes — Normal, Multiply, Add, Subtract, Screen, Overlay, Soft Light, Difference, Darken, Lighten
- Per-layer opacity — control the strength of each layer
- Mask input — plug in any texture as a per-layer mask
- Collapsible layers — keep the UI compact
- Reorderable — move layers up and down in the stack
- Renamable — give each layer a descriptive name
- Non-destructive — editing layers preserves your connections and values
Usage
- Open the Shader Editor.
- Add → Custom → Stack.
- Connect the Color output to your material.
- Add layers, set blend modes, adjust opacity, and connect textures.
Requirements
- Blender 4.5.0 or later
What's New
1.0.4 April 16th, 2026
Persistence overhaul. Stack nodes now round-trip cleanly through save and reload. Layer data, internal mix chain, input sockets, and external links all survive a file close-and-reopen as expected.
Under the hood
- Layer data is now stored directly on the node as a
CollectionProperty— the single source of truth. The parallel ID-property shadow store and theload_postrestore handler that shipped in v1.0.3 have been removed. Net reduction of ~220 lines. - Fixed the underlying persistence bug: Stack's internal node_tree is now marked
use_fake_user = True, preventing Blender from garbage-collecting it during save. This was the root cause of sockets disappearing on reload.
Compatibility
- Files saved with v1.0.3 should load in v1.0.4 without issue.
- Files saved with earlier test builds of v1.0.4 where sockets were already lost cannot be recovered — the internal node_tree was purged from the .blend on save. Delete the affected Stack nodes and add them fresh.
Awesome node, just what I was struggling with, masking and texturing.