VoxelShop
DESCRIPTION:
VoxelShop is an extremely intuitive and powerful software for OSX, Windows and Linux to modify and create voxel objects. It was designed from the ground up in close collaboration with artists. The program is in alpha and features are still being added.
- Open Source: VoxelShop is open source. That means you can easily look at the source code and compile it locally.
- Textured Voxel: In VoxelShop the voxels can also be painted with textures. Each side of a voxel can have a different texture and the textures can be rotated and mirrored. This can be useful for faking higher voxel resolution in specific sections, e.g. the eyes of a character, or to test out different art styles.
- Exporting: Projects can be easily exported to the COLLADA file format. Other formats including voxel formats are coming, I just didn’t get to it yet. On the right side you can see an example of a model that was created with the VoxelShop and a resulting 3D print, which was created from the exported COLLADA file.
- Color: Since colors are important, there are a large number of options available to find just the right one. You can use one of the many different sliders and panels or simply enter a hex value. It is even possible to select a color from anywhere on the screen by pressing “P”. Finally you can store and manage your colors and navigate them quickly using the ASDW keys.
- Perspectives: Voxels can be altered with a number of tools in different perspectives. The 3D view allows to freely display and change the object from arbitrary directions. You will find this view very intuitive: It’s just like playing with Lego. If you prefer an orthogonal side perspective, VoxelShop offers that too for all three planes. A dotted outline indicates where voxel exist on the previous selected plane.
- Tools: Projects can be modified using a number of different, very potent tools. Besides the standard draw and erase tool you can use the color select, flood fill, recolor or the select tool to modify voxel. Selections of voxel can easily be moved to other layers, rotated or mirrored, recolored, translated or duplicated. A stamp tool that will allow you to generate your own shapes and “draw” them is in planning.
- Bindable Shortcuts: Every action in the program is freely bindable to a shortcut. The shortcuts are not restricted to include modifies, so you can even bind single letters. Shortcuts can be easily changed by double clicking them and then pressing the desired, available shortcut.
- Layers: VoxelShop allows to organize your projects in layers. Layers can be hidden to efficiently work on large projects with many voxels. They furthermore allow for easy modularity. You can conveniently swap parts of existing objects by hiding them and then creating a replacement in a new layer. Creating different outfits for your characters doesn’t get any easier. Layers can be renamed and their visibility toggled by double clicking them in the Layer window.
- More: Even though I’ve tried to cover all the major features of the program, there are a lot of smaller once that I missed. To mention some: The wireframe mode that allows you to detect holes in the geometry, mirror drawing for efficient creation of symmetric objects, unlimited undo/redo, importing 2D images as voxel or visual aids like the coordinate axes.
