Team Hellspawn

[Ghostpilot]

Since it seems like the slow moving train that is the voxel project
suddenly found some new tracks to travel on, it seems about time
to compile a whishlist with features we would like to see in a future
voxel editor.

The GUI in Voxel3D is kind of easy to use, but it leave the user
with lot to whish for. Since Ken Silverman hinted that he may
update slab6 voxel editor with gui and possibly new features.
Lets tell him what we want.

Post feature requests with explenations when needed.
Commence whishing.
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Signature? Yes, I have one of those.

[Ghostpilot]

* Integrated slabspri algorithm
---> Meaning the abillity to paste an image on on side of the voxel and
cut away the transparent colour.

* Separated views for 3D and 3D editing
---> Multiple views of sides per axis and 3D view would be nice.
If default is editing in 3D, it would make detail tweaking easy
if you could edit layers per axis in 2D, like paintbrush from old
win 3.11. Why not let each view be a window within the program,
so the user can rearrange the views as tabs, cascade windows or
whatever feels good for hem or her.

* Cut and paste with no limits.
---> I want to be able to paste an image for either texture or slabspri
cutting in any view. For example paste an image of layer 3 in x-axis
2D view or paste the whole x-axis outside for texturing or paste a
slabspri cut-away mask in any view.

* Dynamic voxel size.
--->Slab6 already has it. Voxel3D does not. V3D suck because of that.
You need to define the voxel models final size before you draw it.
We can't have it like that. Start with one voxel and see where it goes
from there. Dynamic size if a requirement.

* Reference picture
--->When I edit a voxel model from scratch I open a reference image
in an external program and alt+tab between them all the time. That
is very annoying at best. The screen is big surely there would be
room for a window to open an image to look at when modelling or
to manually pick colour values from.
--->A possible expansion of this idea would be to paste these reference
images directly on to the voxel and then set transparacy when editing.
This transparant image would only be as help when modelling, not a
part of the final voxel.
--->Even ruther expanding would be to load reference 3D model in the
same way and set transparacy

* Various helper tools
--->Toggleble "things" to aid the modelling phase. Ruler, grid, predefined
view angles and rotations
--->mirror left/right of this line (a line you place over the model you've
drawn so far. Everything on the smallest side of the line will be
replaced by what's on the other side of the line.
--->Select all with color X, erase all with colour x.

*Scaling and resampling
--->Drew to small, but had the right contour? Scaling and interpolate
colours.

*Inflating/deflating 2d images
--->Maybe even let the user define the rules for inflating. Ex. inflate 20
pixel negative x-axis. (Like slabspri fro only one single sprite.
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[DooMAD]

I tried screwing about in Slab6 for a while, but even after reading the text doc a few times and learning all the keys, it still didn't make much sense. I much prefer Voxel3D's interface, but that fails completely due to it's serious limitations. The things you've listed there all sound good to me though.

[Ghostpilot]

Couple of voxel editors:
Slabspri, slab6, v3b2vox, poly2vox - Old and new tools by Ken Silverman.
Voxel3D by Everygraph - The one we used a bit already.
Paint3D by Atomic Corporation - A relatively new one that looks promising.
Cube Kingdom by Ramza3D - A japanese one that runs very smooth, but can only handle 100x100x100 voxels. Interface in japanese.
Qblock by Kyucon - A web based voxel editor. Mor for fun than actually making models with.
Voxel for Iphone by Flatbackfilms dot com - This one is also more for fun. Besides it's only for the Iphone.

So it seems like things are moving in the "indy scene" of voxel editors.
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Signature? Yes, I have one of those.

[DooMAD]

Hey Ghostpilot, it's been a while. How's things? Glad to see you're still around, although sadly I don't think I've made any further progress in the last couple of years.

[Guest]

No, I know.
But even if I did and sometimes do voxel models because I think it's fun to doodle in 3D,
people always feel they are obligated to tell me voxels are obsolete and so on.
I know that, I do not need everyone to tell me that all the time.

Anyway, I have a bag full of 70-80% finished voxel models to upload sometime.
I am especially pleased with the Icon of Sin "skull cube". I'll show you some time.
But I see no actual rush to do so since interest is kind of low at the moment.

All activity I have seen in in the voxel front in a while is a bunch of snot
nosed kids overusing the word "voxel" in the zdoom forums. And that will only earn us and all other people pursuing voxel support in doom, a bad reputation. I felt it was best to lay low.

[Ghostpilot]

The above post was me by the way...
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Signature? Yes, I have one of those.

[DooMAD]

Yeah, I've always avoided those silly discussions on the zdoom forums and just let the work speak for itself. Even if it never ends up being supported, it's still worth doing just because they look so damn cool, heh.