Troubleshoot booleans

This table lists common boolean problems and possible solutions.

Problem

Possible Solution(s)

The Boolean stack is not visible in the Attribute Editor.

Do one of the following to keep the Boolean stack visible through changes in selection:
  • In the Attribute Editor, click when the Boolean stack is visible.
  • In the Attribute Editor, click Copy Tab to create a floating copy of the Boolean stack.

Boolean performance is slow/I want to pause the boolean operation.

The interactivity of booleans can slow down when the number of polygons or input objects in your scene increase. To mitigate slow interactive performance, there's a few things you can try:
  1. Turn on interactive performance mode (Settings > Interactive Mode) in the Boolean stack or Boolean Operation options.

    This mode pauses the boolean calculation while you drag the cursor and refreshes only when you release the mouse button.

  2. Disable any inputs that may not be contributing to the area you are working on.
  3. Limit the number of polygons involved in the boolean:
    • Add a cube as an input object at the top of the Boolean stack.
    • Set the boolean operation to intersection.
    • Use this cube as a bounding box to crop away any polygons outside of your work area.

The Boolean stack stops working and buttons are unresponsive.

Save your work and restart Maya.

An error message appears in the Script Editor after performing an intersection operation.

When you perform an intersection operation with input objects that don't intersect, the following error message appears in the Script Editor and continually reappears as you work with your objects: 
Error: Cannot perform boolean operation.
For example, when you perform an intersection operation on the following list of objects, it returns an empty result and an error message:

If you want to run an intersection on a list of objects, you can try the following:
  1. Manually perform a union operation.

    In the following example, the first four input objects are selected and fused together.

  2. Perform an intersection operation using the last input object.

Related topics

Parent topic: Booleans