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IsoVoxel

Generates isometric pixel art from MagicaVoxel .vox files.

New Project

SpotVox is roughly the successor to IsoVoxel; it renders more quickly, handles materials (including some support for emissive materials), and can handle multiple-part models. I recommend you give it a try if you use IsoVoxel currently; colors should be handled much more consistently.

IsoVoxel will continue to exist, but I'm unlikely to update it much, or maybe at all.

Usage

IsoVoxel is a command-line program (though you don't need to be familiar with the command line to use it), and can be downloaded from this project's Releases section.

IsoVoxel is a command-line program (though you don't need to be familiar with the command line to use it). The simplest way to make a bunch of renders (at least on Windows) is to drag and drop a MagicaVoxel .vox file onto IsoVoxel.exe in the File Explorer, which will make a new folder that shares a name with the .vox file. There will be many images in that folder once the program finishes rendering in a few seconds, organized into subfolders based on the scale of the images and some effects applied to them. They will all use "light" outlining, where there is an outline around the image's silhouette and between gaps in space inside the image, but the color is not a cartoon-style black and is instead a darker version of the nearby voxel color. You can drag and drop animated .vox files, which will produce multiple frames in the same folder. Frames will have their file names end with "_00.png", "_01.png", and so on up to the maximum 24 frames with "_23.png".

MagicaVoxel saves its .vox files in the vox/ subfolder of the MagicaVoxel install directory. You should, of course, have unzipped IsoVoxel.exe from the .zip it is distributed inside before running it. Alternatively, you can customize the rendering somewhat from the command line. For this, use IsoVoxel.exe file.vox x y z m o, where the arguments are:

• file.vox was saved from MagicaVoxel, in the vox/ subfolder usually as mentioned before; often this file is copied into the same folder as IsoVoxel.exe for convenience
• x, y, and z are the bounds of the model, which can be up to 128, and don't have to match the dimensions given in MagicaVoxel; this can be useful to render multiple models at the same position in the images
  • these are given only as numbers, so 20 30 40 and not x=20 y=30 z=40
• m is a multiplier to draw extra renders at multiples of the current size, from size 1 to size m; m defaults to 3 and can be any integer.
  • if m is negative, the larger sizes willl not be smoothed at all, and each voxel will simply become a larger cube of voxels. When m is -3, it will act exactly like when m is 3 except for not smoothing.
  • each multiplied size goes in a different folder, and the smaller renders that use smooth slopes are in a different folder from the renders that use blocky cubes
  • m is also given only as a number, like 4 and not m=4
• o is an outline mode, which can be omitted and defaults to outline=light:
  • outline=full (this makes black outlines around the edge of the model and shading on inner gaps)
  • outline=light (which uses the shaded color instead of black for outer outlines)
  • outline=partial (which has no outer outlines but keeps shaded inner outlines)
  • outline=none (which has no inner or outer outlines).
• if you don't include x y z it will use the size of the model as set in MagicaVoxel.
• if you don't give a .vox file it defaults to Zombie.vox , which is included.
• if you don't include m it will render extra sizes 1, 2, and 3.
• if you don't include o it will use light outlining.
• o can be placed as the last argument even if some or all of x y z have not been included.

IsoVoxel will create a subdirectory named after the model (running on Truck.vox will create a folder called Truck, or on Zombie.vox will make a folder called Zombie) and fill it with a lot of images in subfolders, with more subfolders depending on m:

• in sizeBase:
  • four for north/south/east/west (orthogonal)
  • four for the diagonals between them, rendered at a slightly different perspective (isometric)
• in sizeAbove:
  • eight more for a mostly-top-down view of all eight directions, rendered at close to a 45 degree oblique angle as opposed to th "standard isometric pixel art" 26.565 degree angle; an advantage here is that all directions are about the same size and perspective
• in sizeBaseSloped:
  • four diagonal-direction (isometric) renders at the normal size but with sloped voxels used to make the hard edges seem softer
  • four orthogonal renders at the normal size but with sloped voxels used to make the hard edges seem softer; these still have a different perspective from the isometric ones
• in sizeSmallSloped:
  • four more diagonal-direction renders at a much smaller size, but still with sloped voxels; these may be harder to recognize if you have single-voxel details in the original models
• in sizeBig:
  • eight images that are each double-sized versions of one of the original eight, with some extra voxels added to smooth jagged areas; these have Big in their name
• for each size multiple m:
  • in size1blocky, and every size up to m:
    • eight images that are specially-smoothed versions of the N/S/E/W/NW/NE/SE/SW renders without sloped voxels at size m, with the smallest size having Size1 in the name and larger sizes having Size2, Size3, and so on
  • in size1sloped, and every size up to m:
    • eight images that are specially-smoothed versions of the N/S/E/W/NW/NE/SE/SW renders with sloped voxels at size m, with the names similar to the blocky multiples but with "Slope" in the name

If the .vox model is animated (and has multiple frames), then the images listed above will be rendered for each frame, with all frames for a rendering type going in the same folder.

This comes with some .vox models to test on; Red_Fish_Animated.vox allows you to test the animation rendering.

IsoVoxel needs .NET 3.5 or higher (as of the time of writing, the current version available on Windows is at least 4.6), and has been confirmed at least once to work on Mono (allowing it to work on MacOS and Linux).

Results