Inkarnate Layers Demystified

You've watched the same YouTube tutorial three times. You understand foreground and background in theory. But when you try to place a bridge over a river, the bridge vanishes. When you add trees around mountains, half of them disappear behind the peaks while the other half float in front. The layer system seems to have its own logic, and you're not in on the secret.

The secret is this: Inkarnate doesn't work like Photoshop. It doesn't use a traditional layer stack where you can freely move elements between dozens of layers. Instead, it uses a structured system with specific layer types that serve different purposes. Once you understand which layer type does what, and how stamps interact within those layers, the system clicks into place.

The Two Fundamental Layer Types

Every element on your Inkarnate map exists on one of two fundamental layer types: brush layers and object layers. Confusing these is the source of most layer frustration.

Brush layers hold terrain textures. When you paint grass, water, stone, or sand across your map, you're working on brush layers. These textures fill areas and blend with each other. Brush layers are your foundation: the land, the sea, the cave floor.

Object layers hold stamps. Trees, mountains, buildings, decorations, icons. Anything you place as a discrete item rather than painting as a texture lives on an object layer. These are your details: the forests covering your hills, the cities dotting your coastline, the monsters lurking in your dungeon.

The two layer types render separately. All brush layer content renders first, creating the base of your map. Then all object layer content renders on top. This is why your painted cave floor always appears beneath your placed torches, regardless of when you added each element.

Background, Foreground, and Top

Within the brush layer category, Inkarnate gives you three sub-layers: Background, Foreground, and Top. Understanding these three layers unlocks most of Inkarnate's creative potential.

The Background layer sits at the very bottom of your map. On a world map, this is typically your ocean or sea texture. On a battle map, it might be the void beneath a chasm, the rock behind cave walls, or the stone of a dungeon floor. Whatever you paint on the Background layer will be covered by anything on higher layers.

The Foreground layer sits above the Background. On a world map, this is your landmass. You mask out the Foreground to reveal the Background ocean beneath. On a battle map, the Foreground might be the platform players walk across, the cave floor where combat happens, or the wooden deck of a ship.

The Top layer sits above Foreground. Use this for elevated terrain that rises above your main surface: cliff faces, raised platforms, the roof of a structure you're showing in cross-section. The Top layer renders above stamps on lower brush layers, so you can make terrain that genuinely overlaps your objects.

A practical example: You're creating a cave battle map. Paint your stone floor texture on the Foreground. Paint your dark void on the Background. When you mask away parts of your Foreground floor, you reveal the Background void beneath, creating pits and chasms. Then use the Top layer to paint elevated rock formations that rise above your floor level.

How the Mask Tool Works

The Mask Tool is what separates Foreground from Background visually. When you use the Mask Tool, you're not erasing anything. You're controlling where the Foreground layer is visible and where it's transparent, revealing the Background beneath.

Think of the Foreground as a sheet of paper with your land texture printed on it. The Mask Tool punches holes in that paper. Wherever you punch, you see through to whatever's on the Background layer. Add to your mask, and you punch more holes (revealing more Background). Subtract from your mask, and you patch holes (restoring Foreground visibility).

This is why you don't need to carefully paint water textures around your coastlines. Paint your ocean texture across the entire Background layer. Paint your land texture across the entire Foreground layer. Then use the Mask Tool to sculpt your coastline, revealing the ocean wherever you want it to appear. The coastline exists as a mask boundary, not as a careful painting job.

Each layer can have its own mask with customizable effects. You can toggle masks on or off for flexibility as you work. And because masks are edited with the Brush Tool in the current Inkarnate 2.0 system, the workflow feels familiar to anyone who's used image editing software.

Stamp Ordering Within Object Layers

Here's where many mapmakers get stuck. You've placed your mountains. You've placed your trees. But the trees are appearing in front of the mountains, and it looks wrong. You need the trees to sit behind the peaks, nestled into mountain valleys.

Stamps on the same object layer are ordered by depth. The system determines which stamp appears in front based on when it was placed and its position on the layer. In Inkarnate 2.0, you can create multiple object layers and reorder them using drag-and-drop in the Layers panel. This gives you control over groups of stamps.

The most common workflow: Create one object layer for background stamps (distant mountains, horizon details). Create another for midground stamps (forests, hills, large structures). Create a third for foreground stamps (vegetation at the map's edge, close-up details). Reorder these layers in the panel, and all stamps on a layer move together in the visual hierarchy.

Within a single layer, stamp order is determined by the Object List. Stamps higher in the list render on top of stamps lower in the list. You can select stamps and use the right-click context menu to adjust their position within the layer. When you need fine control over which tree sits in front of which rock, this is your tool.

The Shift-select and Ctrl-select options help manage multiple stamps. Shift-select grabs stamps from bottom to top in the list. Ctrl-select grabs from top to bottom. Be aware that moving multiple stamps to a group can change their order relative to each other. This is a known quirk, not a bug.

The Flatten Technique

Flattening is one of Inkarnate's most useful features, and one of its least understood. When you flatten a stamp, you convert it from an object into part of a brush layer. The stamp loses its individual identity and becomes permanent texture.

Why would you want this? Because flattened stamps behave differently. Once flattened to the Foreground, a stamp is no longer an object you can select and move. It's part of the Foreground texture itself. You can paint over it, mask it, and layer other objects on top without worrying about selection conflicts.

A practical example: You've placed a mountain stamp but the shading on one side doesn't match your lighting. Flatten the mountain to the Foreground. Now paint over the problematic area with terrain texture at low opacity, blending the mountain into your map's lighting. You couldn't do this with the mountain as an object because the paint would go beneath it.

You can flatten objects to Background, Foreground, or Top brush layers. Flattening to Background puts the object beneath everything else. Flattening to Foreground puts it above Background but beneath objects. Flattening to Top puts it above Foreground but still beneath object layer stamps.

The limitation: flattening is permanent. Once you flatten a stamp, you can't unflatten it. You can't select it, move it, or delete it as an object. Use flattening for stamps whose position you're certain about. Keep stamps you might need to adjust as objects.

Practical Layer Workflows

World Maps

Start with your Background layer. Fill it with ocean texture. This is your sea, and it will appear everywhere your land isn't.

Move to your Foreground layer. Fill it with a land texture (grass, earth, whatever your default terrain is). Now use the Mask Tool to sculpt your continents. Subtract from the mask to reveal ocean. Add to the mask to restore land. Your coastlines form where the mask boundary sits.

Paint variation onto your Foreground: deserts, forests, mountains ranges as texture (not stamps yet). The base terrain variations all live on the same Foreground layer.

Now add stamps. Create an object layer for terrain stamps: mountains, hills, trees. Place these to add dimensionality to your flat texture. Create another object layer for locations: cities, points of interest, icons. Keep locations on a higher layer so they always render above terrain.

Add labels last, on the highest object layer. Labels should never be obscured by terrain.

Battle Maps

Battle maps often need more layers than world maps because you're working with structures, elevation changes, and interior spaces.

Paint your lowest surface on the Background layer. For a cave, this is the void. For a ship, this is the water beneath. For a building, this might be the floor of a lower level.

Paint your primary surface on the Foreground layer. This is where your combatants will stand: the cave floor, the ship deck, the room floor. Use the Mask Tool to cut away parts of this surface, revealing the Background beneath. These are your pits, your windows, your holes in the deck.

Use the Top layer for elevated terrain within the scene. A raised platform in a throne room. A rock formation rising from the cave floor. An upper deck section.

Add stamps in logical groups. Create object layers for: furniture and objects at floor level, objects on raised surfaces, lighting effects (torches, glows), and finally grid or measurement overlays if you're using them.

Cave Maps

Caves require thinking about what's wall and what's walkable space. The common mistake is trying to paint walls as objects.

Instead, paint your cave floor on the Foreground. Paint darkness or rock texture on the Background. Use the Mask Tool to define where the floor exists. Everywhere you mask away becomes wall, because the Background shows through.

Now the floor texture only appears where players can walk. The "walls" are simply the absence of floor, revealing the cave darkness beneath. This is faster and cleaner than trying to place wall stamps everywhere.

Add stamps for details: stalagmites, rubble, treasures, creatures. These sit on object layers above your painted floor, so they'll render correctly without fighting with your terrain.

Clip Masks: Advanced Layer Control

Inkarnate 2.0 introduced clip masks, which give you finer control over how objects interact with brush layers. Clip masks have two modes, and understanding both opens new creative possibilities.

The first mode is "Nearest Brush Layer Below." When active, this renders the texture of the nearest brush layer below the object layer "under" the stamp. The stamp appears to be cut out from that texture. Use this when you want a stamp to look like it's physically part of the terrain rather than sitting on top of it.

The second mode is "Erase." When active, the stamp erases anything in the same layer and reveals whatever is below. This is useful for creating cutouts, windows, or any situation where you want a stamp to punch through other content rather than sit on top of it.

Clip masks are toggled per layer. Right-click a layer to access its settings and configure clip mask behavior. Not every map needs clip masks, but when you're creating complex overlapping structures or terrain transitions, they're invaluable.

Common Layer Problems and Fixes

Stamps disappearing behind terrain. Your stamp is on an object layer that renders below the brush layer you're seeing. Move the stamp to a higher object layer, or flatten the terrain to a lower brush layer.

Can't select a stamp because another stamp covers it. Use the Object List panel. Click directly on the stamp name in the list to select it, bypassing the visual overlap on the canvas. Or use Ctrl-click to cycle through stacked objects.

Trees appearing in front of mountains when they should be behind. Either move the trees to a lower object layer than the mountains, or select the trees in the Object List and move them lower in the ordering within the same layer.

Mask changes not appearing. Verify you're editing the mask on the correct layer. With multiple brush layers, it's easy to paint mask changes on the wrong one. Check which layer is selected in the Layers panel.

Flattened stamp looks wrong. Remember that flattening locks the stamp into a brush layer. If you flatten to Foreground and then change your Foreground texture, the flattened stamp retains its original texture. Plan your textures before flattening.

Object order changing unexpectedly. When you move multiple selected stamps into a group, their relative order can shift. This happens with both Shift-select and Ctrl-select methods. If order matters, move stamps to groups one at a time, or adjust order manually after grouping.

Performance and Large Maps

Complex maps with many layers and stamps can slow down Inkarnate's performance. The layer system itself contributes to this. Every layer requires rendering, and every stamp requires processing.

To improve performance, flatten stamps you no longer need to edit. Flattened stamps are cheaper to render than object stamps. Merge object layers when you're confident about their contents. Fewer layers means fewer rendering passes.

Group related stamps. A group renders more efficiently than scattered individual stamps. If you have a forest of 200 trees, grouping them reduces overhead.

If your map still lags, check your export resolution settings. High resolution exports require more processing. Work at lower resolution while editing, then increase for final export.

The Layer System Philosophy

Inkarnate's layer system isn't arbitrary. It reflects how maps are actually constructed. Real maps have a base layer (paper or terrain). On top of that sits painted or printed content (features, regions, textures). On top of that sit placed elements (icons, labels, decorations).

Brush layers are your base and your paint. They're permanent, foundational, and cover areas rather than points. Object layers are your placed elements. They're movable, adjustable, and discrete rather than continuous.

Work with this philosophy rather than against it. Don't try to use stamps for things that should be painted (large terrain areas, water, sky). Don't try to paint things that should be stamps (buildings, trees, icons). Each layer type exists for a reason, and using them correctly makes the whole system easier.

The layer system isn't a limitation to work around. It's a structure that organizes your creative decisions. Background beneath Foreground beneath Top beneath Objects. Masks reveal lower layers. Flattening commits objects to brush layers. Groups organize related stamps. Everything follows a consistent logic.

Once that logic clicks, you stop fighting the system. Your mountains stay behind your trees when you want them to. Your bridges cross your rivers instead of disappearing into them. Your cave floors stay beneath your torches, and your elevated platforms rise above your floors. The map looks like the image in your head, because you understand how to tell Inkarnate what you want.