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MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

ephtracy.github.io

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#21

Please, creators, if you're reading this: Stop labeling things 8-bit that are in no way 8-bit except there are some big squares/cubes involved.

"8-bit" is clearly and widely understood as meaning "intentionally pixelated for artistic effect with a limited color palette, with an overall aesthetic comparable to classic 8-bit game consoles", whether in 2D or 3D. Obviously it's not meant to be taken literally. You might as well complain that "modernism" isn't modern anymore or that "gothic" novels aren't from the same time period of gothic architecture... or tha…

> You might as well complain that "modernism" isn't modern anymore or that "gothic" novels aren't from the same time period of gothic architecture... or that roman typefaces come from places other than Rome, or that italic typefaces aren't all from Italy.

I learned not to in front of people, but honestly, this is a problem - a problem of people introducing bad names, and then no one correcting them even decades later.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#22

Please, creators, if you're reading this: Stop labeling things 8-bit that are in no way 8-bit except there are some big squares/cubes involved.

"8-bit" is clearly and widely understood as meaning "intentionally pixelated for artistic effect with a limited color palette, with an overall aesthetic comparable to classic 8-bit game consoles", whether in 2D or 3D. Obviously it's not meant to be taken literally. You might as well complain that "modernism" isn't modern anymore or that "gothic" novels aren't from the same time period of gothic architecture... or tha…

> Obviously it's not meant to be taken literally.

In that sense, we could also say that Minecraft has voxel graphics, since a lot of people seem to think so. It looks blocky, so it must be voxels.

I wonder which "voxel"-engine Minecraft runs on ;p

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#23
I love this program, I find it so relaxing to simply listen to some music or a podcast and create some unusual works or art with it. I would love for the creator to make an iPad version one day though, I think using the stylus to work with this tool would be fantastic.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#24

Last time I checked its canvas size was quite small. One could not construct minecraft like landscapes in it.

You can adjust the canvas size. There's a place where you can enter the voxel x voxel dimensions you want to work in. Edit: in a recent update it added support for 1024 x 1024 scenes.

For those like me that couldn't work out how to create bigger scenes, the world editor is available by pressing TAB or clicking the TAB icon above the top-right corner of the main view.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#25

MagicaVoxel is great! Even though the program is not open source, the file format is documented by the creator [0]. For a small game I'm working on I read in the vox files and reconstruct the meshes in-game. I can then create procedurally destructed variations by tweaking the vox data and re-generating the meshes in-game [1] [0] https://github.com/ephtracy/voxel-model/blob/master/MagicaVo... [1] https://twitter.com/M…

This is what every software should do. I don't care if software isn't free or open source, but file formats should be documented so that they can be read later or processed by other tools.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#26
post #20

https://github.com/ephtracy/ephtracy.github.io/issues/108 I understand the reasons, but it's always disappointing to see a project on GitHub that doesn't actually plan on releasing source code.

Strongly disagree. GitHub is among other things a platform for sharing. Sharing should not be obligatory. When someone shares something, if you like it, be grateful, and if you don't, just move along. If you want to know how it's done just go and read some open source voxel library - there are ton's of them. If you are interested on the path rendering part there's lots of awesome didactic resources for that as well.…

It'snot obligatory but it's still disappointing.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#27

Few Questions: * Who's https://twitter.com/ephtracy ? Why did you create this? How are you using it this days? Are you making any games with this? * How do you produce images like this? [1] Is the Ray Tracer to do that built in or do you have to import the models in a second software? * What kind of support is there for the vox file format? (where/how to render outside the app). 1: http://ephtracy.github.io/image/sna…

> Who's https://twitter.com/ephtracy?

Unknown, they appear to like their privacy.

> Why did you create this? How are you using it this days? > Are you making any games with this?

"the project is also used as my personal research platform, so it contains codes for unpublished features and from other private projects." [0]

> Is the Ray Tracer to do that built in or do you have to import the models in a second software?

It has a built in renderer, or you can export to other tools (e.g. Unity3D) if you want more control of rendering or to be able to rotate/deform the models. I see Export options for: obj, ply, mc, xraw, slab, qb, vox, iso and 2d.

[0] https://github.com/ephtracy/ephtracy.github.io/issues/108#is...

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#28

MagicaVoxel is great! Even though the program is not open source, the file format is documented by the creator [0]. For a small game I'm working on I read in the vox files and reconstruct the meshes in-game. I can then create procedurally destructed variations by tweaking the vox data and re-generating the meshes in-game [1] [0] https://github.com/ephtracy/voxel-model/blob/master/MagicaVo... [1] https://twitter.com/M…

This is what every software should do. I don't care if software isn't free or open source, but file formats should be documented so that they can be read later or processed by other tools.

This is one of the reasons why I went with Arq for backups - it's a thing I tend to forget about, so if five years down the line the software turns out to no longer exist for whatever reason, I can be confident there's an open source unpacker somewhere.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"8-bit" is clearly and widely understood as meaning "intentionally pixelated for artistic effect with a limited color palette, with an overall aesthetic comparable to classic 8-bit game consoles", whether in 2D or 3D. Obviously it's not meant to be taken literally. You might as well complain that "modernism" isn't modern anymore or that "gothic" novels aren't from the same time period of gothic architecture... or tha…

> Obviously it's not meant to be taken literally. In that sense, we could also say that Minecraft has voxel graphics, since a lot of people seem to think so. It looks blocky, so it must be voxels. I wonder which "voxel"-engine Minecraft runs on ;p

Well, the Minecraft world is represented as voxels, so it's not that far off to say it 'has voxel graphics'.

Re: MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"8-bit" is clearly and widely understood as meaning "intentionally pixelated for artistic effect with a limited color palette, with an overall aesthetic comparable to classic 8-bit game consoles", whether in 2D or 3D. Obviously it's not meant to be taken literally. You might as well complain that "modernism" isn't modern anymore or that "gothic" novels aren't from the same time period of gothic architecture... or tha…

> You might as well complain that "modernism" isn't modern anymore or that "gothic" novels aren't from the same time period of gothic architecture... or that roman typefaces come from places other than Rome, or that italic typefaces aren't all from Italy. I learned not to in front of people, but honestly, this is a problem - a problem of people introducing bad names, and then no one correcting them even decades later…

It’s not actually a problem. It’s fine. We all understand each other.
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