System Information:
Operating system: Linux-5.14.0-1-amd64-x86_64-with-glibc2.32 64 Bits
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090/PCIe/SSE2 NVIDIA Corporation 4.5.0 NVIDIA 470.63.01
Blender Version:
Broken version: 3.0.0 Alpha, branch: master, commit date: 2021-10-07 19:35, hash: rB23791db14563
Broken version: 2.93
Broken version: 2.92
Broken version: 2.91
Broken version: 2.90
Broken version: 2.83
Worked: 2.82
Short description of error:
When creating a certain volumetric material on an object with a specific set of actions, the volume will end up being "2 dimensional" or only surface level until viewport rendering is reset or other settings are changed.
| 2D result (broken) | Expected result |
Exact steps for others to reproduce the error:
- Start with the default scene and change the render engine to Cycles.
- Change to the Rendered Viewport mode.
- Open a shader editor along side the 3D viewport and delete the Principled BSDF and add Volume Scatter node and attach the output from the Volume Scatter node to the socket in the Material Output node.
- Add a texture node (Noise Texture in my case) and attach one of the outputs to the Density socket of the Volume Scatter node.
- Add a Color Ramp node between the Noise Texture and Volume Scatter node and adjust the handles to create extreme contrast.
- In the 3D viewport you should now be able to see that the volume appears to be 2D/only surface level. Changing to some other Viewport mode than back to the Rendered Viewport mode fixes it.
Here's a video demonstrating the issue:

