How to Toggle 3D Hat, Jacket, Sleeve, and Pants Layers in 3D Skin Layers

guide

3D Skin Layers lets you decide, piece by piece, which parts of a player's outer skin appear as raised 3D geometry instead of flat pixels. Every toggle below lives in the mod's settings screen, titled 3D Skin Layer Settings.

Per-Part Layer Toggles

Each of these switches controls one region of the outer skin layer. Turn a switch on to give that region depth; turn it off to leave it flat.

Hat layer — makes the covering over the head render as a 3D model.
Jacket layer — makes the torso covering render as a 3D model.
Left sleeve layer — makes the left arm covering render as a 3D model.
Right sleeve layer — makes the right arm covering render as a 3D model.
Left pants layer — makes the left leg covering render as a 3D model.
Right pants layer — makes the right leg covering render as a 3D model.

Because these are separate, you can mix them freely. For example, you might keep the jacket raised while leaving both sleeves flat, or give the hat depth while the pants stay flat.

Distance and Detail

Level Of Detail Distance sets how far away a player can be before their model drops to a simpler, flat representation. Beyond that range, the outer layer stops being 3D and looks like the standard flat version.

Voxel Sizing

These settings adjust how chunky the 3D geometry looks by changing the size of the small blocks that build it.

Voxel size for players — the general size used across the player model.
Voxel size for the player's head — a separate size for the head region.
Voxel height for the player's body — controls vertical size on the torso, which helps avoid the body poking into the head or jutting past the arms.
Voxel width for the player's torso — controls horizontal size on the torso, which helps avoid the torso poking into the arms.
First Person Voxel Size — the size used for your own hand when viewed in first person.

Head Blocks and Head Items

Two more toggles cover heads shown as world objects rather than worn on a player.

Head (block) — renders placed head blocks as 3D models.
Head (item) — renders head items as 3D models.
Voxel size for heads — sets the size used for both the block and item head models.

Performance and Compatibility

Render as fast as possible — speeds up drawing of the 3D models, though it can introduce graphical glitches where transparency is involved.
Compatibility Mode — an alternate rendering path that may resolve conflicts with other mods.
Iris Compatibility Mode — another alternate rendering path that fixes odd shadows and colors under Iris shaders. Enable it only when you actually need it, since it breaks corner connections.
Sodium workaround — addresses a case where Sodium flips cube faces in certain versions. Turn it on only if you use Sodium and see missing sides on the skin layers.

Opening the Settings

Open the mod's settings screen to reach every option described above. If the mod provides a hotkey for this, use the corresponding hotkey (set it in the controls menu) rather than assuming a default. From there, flip the per-part toggles to shape exactly which layers gain depth.