This article is for artists or developers interested in graphical representation

By HelloGitHub-Joey

Early display devices had large pixel particles, which made the display content granular, like a pile of blocks. A good example is GBA on the game, I believe that this is also a lot of friends precious childhood memories. This style of art has continued to this day, although the resolution of the display device is enough to display very detailed images, but there are still many people prefer pixel-style games and art paintings.

In 3D space, the concept of Pixel is Voxel, which uses discrete basic units to represent objects in 3D space. The most straightforward understanding is small squares. Minecraft is a very famous Voxel game.

Goxel is a voxel editor used to create 3D voxel art works. With it, everyone can try to create their own 3D pixel works and recall the taste of childhood.

Project address: github.com/guillaumech…

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Goxel is an open source voxel editor with cross-platform support including iOS, Android and online web editions. Sparse matrices are used internally to store data, enabling it to support very large-scale scene editing. After editing, the software can export various 3D files including glTF2.0 and OBJ, which can be used in other software or games.

1.1 Download and Installation

The download page on the project’s website provides links for desktop and mobile downloads. Mobile is a direct link to the corresponding Store. IOS devices can be downloaded directly from the App Store.

The online Web Version is displayed at the top of the home page and can be experienced in the browser.

1.2 Compilation and Installation

This part of the content for want to compile and install or use on Linux system friends, if other platforms want to experience the software can directly download binary files to use.

First, you need to install the required dependent libraries, which can be directly installed using the corresponding package management software. The required dependencies are as follows (the software package names may vary from system to system) :

- scons
- pkg-config
- libglfw3-dev
- libgtk-3-dev
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After installing the required dependencies, first clone the project:

git clone https://github.com/guillaumechereau/goxel.git
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After clone, enter the project root directory and enter:

make release
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The compilation is complete. When done, the goxel executable will be generated in the root directory by typing:

./goxel
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Ready to use.

During my testing, I found a serious bug on the Linux platform that would make it impossible to draw blocks or use the UI, so I suggest using a Mac to try.

2. Interface introduction

Similar to the traditional editor software, the middle area of the interface is the part for voxel drawing. Click the left mouse button and drag to perform brush operation.

2.1 Introduction to Toolbar Buttons

Toolbar buttons are highlighted with red boxes and fall into two categories: undo redo and brush control.

The undo redo part (three buttons on the left) contains three functional buttons: Undo, redo and clear the current layer, which provide brush history control and can be undone and redo in a single left-click sliding operation. The third button provides the ability to clear all voxels of the current layer.

The brush control part contains four buttons on the right, among which the first three buttons are brush mode buttons, and the fourth button controls the voxel color of the brush. Brush modes include:

  1. To add voxel mode, drag the mouse to add the voxel of the current color
  2. Delete voxel mode, drag the mouse to delete the voxel on the track
  3. To modify the color mode, drag the mouse to change the color of the voxel on the track to the current setting color

2.2 Introduction to buttons on the left Side

Introduce the functions of each button according to the serial number marked in the figure:

  1. Toolbar page, click will pop up a specific tool list, including brush, plane mask, blur selection, color pick, procedural generation and other tools
  2. Color palette page, click will pop up a list of commonly used preset colors
  3. The Layer Management page, very similar to the concept of layers in Photoshop, allows you to draw individual voxels within each layer. This page provides control over the display of adding and removing layers
  4. Display control, after clicking, the option of global display control will pop up. This part only controls the screen display effect, and does not affect editing
  5. Material control, after clicking, the global voxel material control options will pop up, including simple roughness, metallicity and other properties control
  6. Lighting control, after clicking, the overall environment lighting control options will pop up
  7. Camera control, click will pop up the camera control page, in this page you can add or subtract the camera, and switch between multiple machines. It also controls the orientation of the camera and provides preset camera angles for several front views
  8. Frame control, which provides control items for the relative position and size of the overall 3D space
  9. Render: After clicking this button, the offline rendering process will start, and the picture from the current camera perspective will be rendered by offline rendering algorithm. The specific effect is associated with the Settings in the light material page above, and the picture can be saved after the rendering is completed
  10. Export page, which provides the option to export the results of the current edit to other 3D format files

Three, use suggestions

I have tested four platforms, Linux, Mac, iOS and Web. The situation of each platform is summarized as follows:

  1. The Linux platform needs to be compiled and installed. The compilation process is smooth, but there are serious interface bugs, leading to the failure to use it
  2. Touch pad gesture support on the Mac is incomplete, and mouse support is fine
  3. I think it is the best user experience on iOS platform. Gesture support is complete and what you see is what you get. The promotional video on the official website is a demonstration of using iPad Pro
  4. The menu bar button on the Web cannot be used, but the export function can be completed by using the button in the left bar. This is the most convenient way to experience the export function

Iv. Exhibition of works

The following pictures are from the Gallery page of the official website

Five, the last

Had seen in all kinds of video content authors to create all sorts of beautiful landscape in MC, realize all kinds of interesting ideas, now use the editor can do the same thing, with the various operating tools provided in the editor, can make the creators are more convenient and quick to draw add voxel, more freely and quickly implement your own ideas. The exported format supported by the software can also transfer the work to other 3D software for further processing and production to become a complete Voxel art work.

In addition, as an open source project, if you find some points that can be improved during the use of the project and have the ability to develop, you can also try to communicate with the project maintenance personnel, determine the development plan and feedback to the community, to help improve the software and add a shining experience to your resume.

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