Solved: Inconsistent behavior in my NDO session when trying Workflow Primer tutorial

grabbity

I'm trying the Quixel Workflow Primer tutorial and am wondering how I can tune the behavior of Photoshop(assuming Photoshop's responsible) from this: https://gfycat.com/GrossDimpledJerboa to 1:49 in the video tutorial linked here. To be specific, when I apply a modification to the 'Sculpt Layer'(name of automatically created layer by NDO) I find that I have to merge the newly generated shape layer with the Sculpt Layer whereas in the tutorial this isn't the case and the modification is automatically applied to the Sculpt Layer without Photoshop creating a new layer for the modification. 

I've tried retracing my steps and reworked my Photoshop session to appear as equivalent as possible to the video tutorial. I've had Photoshop installed since early this year and have played with it from time to time so it's possible that configurations were committed by myself in which case it may be required that I reset Photoshop to default configuration if this is an option. All help is appreciated thank you   

Synaesthesia

This is because you're adding a shape layer above the NDO sculpt layer. If you want to auto-merge the work you're creating, make sure you're on the NDO sculpt layer and set the path type to pixels so it doesn't generate a new layer. This has the side-effect of not allowing you to modify the shape because it's automatically rasterized.

The workaround for this is to create a shape layer, convert that to an NDO layer, enter sculpt mode, and then add shapes within that shape layer as you see fit.

grabbity

Excellent 
The workaround is pretty neat. Thank you for being thorough and for addressing my concerns o/