Pixelation

Critique => 2D & 3D => Topic started by: hANshOTtH3RD on July 21, 2020, 02:09:49 am

Title: Voxel Editor+Animator Options...thoughts?
Post by: hANshOTtH3RD on July 21, 2020, 02:09:49 am
I'm just wondering what is the best free(preferably open-source) way to get into voxel editing?
After searching around for a good free voxel editor to help me dip my toe once again into 3D design, i recently found a couple programs: Goxel (https://goxel.xyz) and MagicaVoxel (https://ephtracy.github.io). Both are free(and will export to png slices, neat!). also żboth? are open-source?(check back with me on that one):
I'm still having some issues figuring out all the controls or which one i like better; i guess as a still-sometimes-coder i usually like the one that compiles the easiest, although for now I'm just testing it out; but i'm wondering if anyone else is familiar with these two and has a preference?

...I also found this old thread (https://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19275.0) about Blackbox Voxel Tool (http://pandemonium.graphics), which looks cool although it appears to be only for Windows...

Actually, it's entirely possible I'll go with Blender (https://www.blender.org) since I have some familiarity with it already, and it is open-source, and supposedly can do some stuff with voxels.

I'm curious about making animated voxel scene with light and shadow. I'm not really sure how I'll go about it at this point, but as far as i understand I can import a voxel.obj into blender, where I then add light and shadow. But it's still sort of unclear to me at this point how I will actually get it animated, since I haven't found a way to animate yet in Goxel or MagicaVoxel, and I'm not trying to do anything that would transform/deform a static model, but rather import an already animated voxel scene for shading.

...Do I need to download Unity (https://unity.com)? I guess it's free these days, although I'm totally unfamiliar with it, and am not sure where to start. i'm thinking it might be more than I can handle at the moment...

...Can Qubicle (http://minddesk.com/index.php) do what I want? I'm hesitant to start buying things without knowing it will suit my purposes...

...does anybody know where to point me in the right direction?

...thanks for reading.
Title: Re: Voxel Editor+Animator Options...thoughts?
Post by: fskn on July 22, 2020, 05:58:47 am
Sorry if I come here with more questions and not really any answers, but I'm a curious cat. How do you want to do light and shadow? Do you want to color voxels like they're pixels (so each cube is flat shaded), or do you want them to have gradations (like each face or vertex has its gradient shading)? Because personally, i would like to see the former...

I understand that you want to do something like Lexaloffle's Voxatron (https://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php), which has a built-in animator, looks like..? But it also looks like MagicaVoxel can do that too (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Bm21J6), though maybe you need to use an older version in order to do that (guessing from that poster's comment).
Title: Re: Voxel Editor+Animator Options...thoughts?
Post by: hANshOTtH3RD on July 22, 2020, 08:41:37 pm
...Do you want to color voxels like they're pixels (so each cube is flat shaded), or do you want them to have gradations (like each face or vertex has its gradient shading)?...

good question! I was interested in having different faces of the same voxel be different shades, and so I think my process will involve exporting some sort of tile-map(although one which only uses square geometry). I'm actually thinking it could all be represented as some sort of sliced gif x3.

...not sure about the viewer yet ...or most of the modeling process really, sort of side-tracked with other junk right now...

...so it's really just a daydream at the moment... ;)
Title: Re: Voxel Editor+Animator Options...thoughts?
Post by: Rydin on August 08, 2020, 06:08:07 am
I am also wondering this same thing actually...
Title: Re: Voxel Editor+Animator Options...thoughts?
Post by: hANshOTtH3RD on August 10, 2020, 01:23:25 am
we are likeminded Rydin! remind me to spend some time on this... also, to work on my pixelviewer browser app (https://mrh4nds.github.io/pixelquick/).

...I've gotten too busy with different accounts... also reading up on making my own SMF forum(for an unrelated project).