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MagicaVoxel: A free voxel art editor and path tracing renderer
- sushisource 8y agoPlease, 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.
- nomel 8y agoIn this context, "8-bit" is a well understood name of an art style. In this context, it's well understood that this has nothing to do with the bus width of processor architecture or misc color/data bit widths. Think of it as a label like "modern art", which is art from 1860s to the 1970s.
- sushisource 8y agoSure, but they're already saying "Voxel", which seems to be a better, more specific term here.
- nomel 8y agoTechnically accurate and precise specificity is rarely a goal when marketing a product. Their target audience will be using "8-bit" in their search terms.
- rpdillon 8y agoThe tag line is on the site says: > A free lightweight 8-bit voxel art editor and interactive path tracing renderer. Is the sentence in some way more clear with the modifier '8-bit'? What's being clarified?
- gbear605 8y agoThat people are looking for “8-bit.” For instance, someone might google “8 bit editor.”
- PavlovsCat 8y agoSomeone might also google "audio editor", so why not also call it an audio editor to be on the safe side?
- nomel 8y ago8-bit style voxel art can easily be made with this. In fact, that's the intended use case. This would be a very poor tool for creating audio, and anyone looking for an audio tool would notice this immediately. "8-bit voxel" is completely understood to the target audience. Anything involving audio would not.
- ghusbands 8y agoThat the voxels are each a solid color and are expected to be displayed at between 1x1 and 4x4 screen pixels per voxel. Definitely not minecraft-style, for example.
- MattRix 8y agoYou are correct in general, but in this specific case the program is labelled "8-bit" because there is a palette limit of 256 different colors per model. Note: not output pixel colours, but rather colors that each voxel can be.
- crazygringo 8y ago"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 that roman typefaces come from places other than Rome, or that italic typefaces aren't all from Italy.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> 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.
- MattRix 8y agoThe real reason it's called 8-bit is because each model has a limit of 256 colours, NOT because of "8-bit" retro aesthetics. See: https://twitter.com/ephtracy/status/575207275985530880?s=20 https://twitter.com/ephtracy/status/575207275985530880?s=20
- Kiro 8y ago8-bit has evolved to mean something else to the masses. Deal with it.
- billfruit 8y agoLast time I checked its canvas size was quite small. One could not construct minecraft like landscapes in it.
- applecrazy 8y agoYou 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.
- Flenser 8y agoFor 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.
- matt2000 8y agoI highly recommend people check this out if you're interested in voxel graphics, or a simple way to make 3D graphics if you're artistically challenged like me. We used it to make a whole game and it was great: https://www.larvalabs.com/project/roadtrip https://www.larvalabs.com/project/roadtrip Here are some other awesome things made with it: https://twitter.com/HuntingFluff/status/1046417418459975681 https://twitter.com/HuntingFluff/status/1046417418459975681 https://twitter.com/Sir_carma/status/1051867299303440384 https://twitter.com/Sir_carma/status/1051867299303440384 And in general I recommend following Sir Carma for inspiration: https://twitter.com/Sir_carma https://twitter.com/Sir_carma
- com2kid 8y agoDead Android link? Aww. :( I think you missed out on 1/2 the possible publicity of having the top comment on a front page HN post!
- retSava 8y agolooks like a crossover of Frogger and Outrun! Looks fun!
- dmos62 8y agoI followed some links in your links and ended up here: https://www.patreon.com/ondrejsvadlena https://www.patreon.com/ondrejsvadlena It's a crowdfunded game. Here's a walkthrough [0]. It's absolutely amazing. Watching it, I was on the edge of my seat for 20 minutes. The walkthrough's gameplay is a nightime rally chase in the country. The driver is good, by the way. To those who won't watch it through and through, at the very end, he goes to the hydroplant and turns on the roadside lights. The visuals are like nothing I've seen. I'm not an easily excitable person, and I don't usually throw hyporboles around, but, in my eyes, this is something very unique. [0] https://youtu.be/Gb4qVZW69lM https://youtu.be/Gb4qVZW69lM
- nogbit 8y agoYour google play link is broken https://www.larvalabs.com/roadtrip/ https://www.larvalabs.com/roadtrip/
- emmanueloga_ 8y agoFew Questions: * Who's https://twitter.com/ephtracy 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/snap2016-07-02-17-16-08.png http://ephtracy.github.io/image/snap2016-07-02-17-16-08.png 2: https://github.com/ephtracy/voxel-model https://github.com/ephtracy/voxel-model
- Flenser 8y ago> Who's https://twitter.com/ephtracy 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#issuecomment-408717302 https://github.com/ephtracy/ephtracy.github.io/issues/108#is...
- Jyaif 8y agoClosed source + anonymous source = recipe for malware. I recommend running this in a sandbox of some kind.
- Flenser 8y ago@ephtracy has been developing it for over 5 years. I understand why you might be concerned but that's a lot of time to invest creating a niche piece of software in order to launch a malware attack. If it was new today I might share your concern.
- 8y ago
- zapita 8y agoThere's a cool little project called "particubes" that is a sort of "magicavoxel lite" on iOS. It's pretty fun to sketch 3D scenes on the go on an iphone. Authors are pretty responsive too.
- binarycrusader 8y agohttps://github.com/ephtracy/ephtracy.github.io/issues/108 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.
- fsloth 8y agoStrongly 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. If you don't trust the author and are afraid that the code does something nasty - just don't use it. If the author feels he is not contributing - or not willing to contribute - to the state of the art in voxel techniques or path rendering (both of which are totally fine stances) then there really is no value in showing the source. If someone creates a free tool for making art, their contribution should be cherished, and their tool used for art, and appreciated for it's artistic merits. Don't give shit for the author for releasing the free tool on his own conditions. If you don't like those, move along. Or, if you are inspired, go make your own and open source it! By the way, that discussion is just horrible. The author lays open the reasons why he does not want to release it and the other party just disagrees. "We could help you with the patches... I would like to read the code that I run".. Oh really? I wonder if he really has read through the entire codebase of the operating system and all of the drivers and all of the programs he runs. "Helping out with the patches" without adult supervision can lead to this: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/9491391/Elderly-woman-destroys-19th-century-fresco-with-DIY-restoration.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/9491391/Elderly-woma... I totally understand why the author would not like to nanny the internet's eager contributors. An open source project needs a huge cultural effort to collect and coordinate technically savvy key contributors before it can work. That won't happen automatically. Not everybody yearns to be a benevolent dictator for life of this or that.
- pawelmurias 8y ago
- frenchie14 8y agoMagicaVoxel 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/MagicaVoxel-file-format-vox.txt https://github.com/ephtracy/voxel-model/blob/master/MagicaVo... [1] https://twitter.com/MaxBize/status/1048717357319745538 https://twitter.com/MaxBize/status/1048717357319745538
- gardaani 8y agoThis 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.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoThis 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.
- loudmax 8y agoI'd go a little further than "documented". MS Office's .docx and .pptx files are "documented" but creating a compatible reader is a major undertaking. I wish people would hold off until there's an existing open source project that can at least decode the files enough to accurately convert the files to another format. Avoid lock-in before has a chance to take root.
- Shinchy 8y agoI 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.
- pasta 8y agoFor Linux users: the 64bit Windows version runs fine in Wine.
- VladimirGolovin 8y agoLooks cool! Is there a way to make the UI / fonts bigger on 4k monitors?
- nokiz 8y agoYou can scale the UI https://twitter.com/ephtracy/status/934877261135843331 https://twitter.com/ephtracy/status/934877261135843331
- iosonofuturista 8y agoJust use CTRL+PLUS or CTRL+MINUS to scale the UI
- coryfklein 8y agoHere's a time lapse of William Santacruz using MagicaVoxel to make some Mario fanart [1]. I recommend playing at 2x speed. Gives you a good idea of what the app can do as well as how voxel modelling is different from traditional polygonal modeling like in Blender. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPtw7L-lV7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPtw7L-lV7Y
- curyous 8y agoThe speed and quality of the rendering is insane. I would love to know how it is done.
- rayalez 8y agoAbsolutely brilliant piece of software, I'm a huge fan. It's extremely easy to get started with, and a very pleasant way to spend your time, whether you're a professional artist or not. Imagine building stuff in minecraft but 10x more convenient. And the developer keeps making it better and better. A few things I've made with it: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GY8D3 https://www.artstation.com/artwork/GY8D3 https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2VleJ https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2VleJ https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ryqk2 https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ryqk2 Follow the developer for a lot of awesome and inspiring examples: https://twitter.com/ephtracy https://twitter.com/ephtracy Also I've made a little collection of my favorite artworks: https://www.artstation.com/rayalez/collections/184272 https://www.artstation.com/rayalez/collections/184272