In this beginner Goxel tutorial we will show you how to create your own voxel art for your games and projects using the Goxel editor!Have you been wanting to make your own voxel art? Whether you want to create something to share to your social media channel or maybe you need an asset for your next video game, this Goxel tutorial will help you start creating voxel art quickly with Goxel.
Getting Started
Voxel art is a fun and simple way to make 3D models for your art or video game projects! This is why so many artists love creating models with voxels. As of today there are tons of different tools available for creating voxel art, but in this tutorial we will be focusing on popular editor that is used on a variety of platforms. Goxel is very popular with voxel artists because of its cross-platform support for making voxel art and also because its free to use in your projects!
If you need assistance installing Goxel, view our tutorial How to Install Goxel. There you can find a step by step tutorial on getting Goxel running on your device.
Simple Walkthrough of Goxel
Once you have Goxel installed on your machine you can go ahead and fire up the application.
One of the nice things about Goxel is that all the commands and windows are located at the left side of the editor window. Now Goxel has a lot of great tools and features for making voxel art. However, we’ll take it slow and by the time you finish this tutorial you’ll feel very comfortable navigating the software. So to begin we will break down what all of these buttons on the top are mean and then we’ll move along the side and explain what each of those buttons mean as well.
Top Bar:
- Arrow Buttons: These arrow buttons are your undo and redo commands respectively.
- Trash Button: The button with the trash icon allows you to delete the model from your scene.
- Square Buttons: The next 3 buttons are the Add, Delete and Paint commands respectively.
- Color Button: The last button on the top bar is the currently selected color.
Side Bar:
- Tools Button: The first button is the Tools button. In here you will find most of the tools for editing your voxel models including different brush modes, the move tool and the eye dropper tool.
- Palette Button: The Palette button allows you to select different colors from various color palettes that ship with Goxel.
- Layers Button: The layers button allows you to set up layers in your scene similar to layers in Photoshop.
- View Button: The view button lets you adjust different viewport settings such as the grid and ambient occlusion.
- Materials Button: The materials button allows you to modify the final look of voxels by adjusting their properties.
- Light Button: The light button allows you to adjust the lighting in your scene.
- Camera Button: The camera button lets you adjust the camera view settings.
- Image Button: The image button lets you adjust the dimensions of your matrix for your model.
- Render Button: The render button allows you to create
high-quality render images of your voxel model. - Export Button: The export button gives you several export options for your model including .OBJ models and .PNG images.
How to Create Your First Voxel Model
Now that you have a basic idea of what the Goxel Editor is composed, we will show you how to make your first voxel model using the tools in menus we just
discussed! In this tutorial we will create a castle that you can use in your own castle game.
Create a New Voxel Model
We will begin by creating a new model file so that you have a empty canvas. Once you open Goxel go click File in the top left corner and choose Save As.
Once you click the Save as option, you will be presented with a file save dialogue. Go ahead and choose a name and location for your new voxel model.
Press Enter when you’re done. Keep in mind that when working in Goxel, your model files will be saved as a .GOX file.
Creating the Structure
We will begin by building the base structure of our castle tower. Now throughout the process I will be showing you where to add your voxels. However one of the cool things about voxel art is creating your own creations! If you want to change it by adding a few extra voxels feel free to do so!
Before we begin we are going to do 3 things to get started. First we are going to select the Add voxel tool located inside the top bar of Goxel.
Second we are going to open up the tools window by clicking the Tools button on the side bar. Third we are going select the Shape brush inside the tools window to help us create the structure for our castle. We have numbered the steps in the image below.
Great! So now we are ready to start adding some voxels to our scene! So the Shape brush that you just selected earlier works very similar to the rectangular selection tool you see in Photoshop or Illustrator. Simply click on the grid and drag to make a rectangle of voxels. We made ours a 9×9 rectangle.
So now that we have a base we need to add some layers of voxels to build the main structure of our tower. Add 8 more layers of voxels using the same tool. Your tower should look something like this:
Next we will add some mini pillars to the top of our tower to give it a classic castle look. Start by adding a voxel to the top left corner of your tower like the image below.
Now that you got the hang of it, lets go ahead and add some more of these tiny pillars all around the top of our tower. You should end up with something like this:
Using the Erase tool to Create a Door and Windows
Now that are basic structure is complete we will add an door and set of windows to our tower. To do this we will use another popular tool: The Erase tool. To do this go ahead and select the Erase tool located inside of the top bar.
We will begin with the door. To remove voxels simply click and drag just like we did before. Except now since you selected the Erase tool it will remove the voxels instead of adding them. Try to make a door that looks like.
Perfect! Now that we have a door let’s create some openings for the windows in our tower. Using the same technique, cut out some windows on the other side of our tower. As an extra bonus lets also take a layer off the roof on top to give our tile a more custom look. Use the image below as a guide.
Add Some Details using the Paint Tool
Our castle tower is slowly starting to take shape, however it would be nice if we could add some more color to our model. To do this we will use another common tool: The Paint tool. Again we will perform 3 steps to set up our tools so that we can begin painting our model. First select the Paint tool by clicking the paint button located inside of the top bar. Second click the Palette button in the side bar to open the Palette window. Third, select a brown color from the palette to paint our door with. We have labeled the steps below:
Awesome! We are now ready to start painting. Since we are still using the same brush, painting works identical to adding and deleting voxels! Simply click and drag to paint voxels the brown color you chose. This is how our door came out.
Another great feature of Goxel is the large set of color palettes that come built-in to the program. Inside of the Palette window there is a drop-down with all the different color palettes. Go ahead and pick a few colors yourself and paint them on your tower. We chose a slightly darker gray to. create a brick effect and a yellow color for the windows to make it look like torch light. We then painted the pillars a darker gray to make them stand out more. This is how our tower came out:
Congratulations! You just completed your first voxel model! You also learned the main tools to work with Goxel that can be used to make other voxel creations! Feel free to add some more details if you like. In the next section we will show you how to share a picture of your model.
Share your Voxel Model
Now that you made your voxel tower, wouldn’t it be cool to share a picture of it? In this next section we’ll show you how to turn your voxel model into an image that you can share on social media!
Exporting a Voxel Model as an Image
In order to share your new voxel tower to a social network like Instagram or Facebook, it must be exported from Goxel to an image format that they accept. The good news is Goxel supports the .png option which is the most widely supported image format in the world!
To export any voxel model from Goxel as a PNG image, start by clicking the Export button located at the bottom of the side bar. When the Export window opens, enter the values below into the fields. This adjusts the size of the image that gets exported.
After you hit the Export button a Save dialogue will appear. Simply enter in a name and specify a location to save your new image to. Click save.
For more posts on how to use Goxel check out our other great Goxel Tutorials
Success!
Well done! Now you can share your own voxel creation with your friends and family! If you want to share your creation with us for a chance to get a shout out on our page, tag us on Instagram or Facebook using @megavoxels or use the hashtag #megavoxels! We are always checking for new voxel artists everyday! If this post was helpful please considering sharing it! Have fun!
