3D graphics eBook - Course Materials Repository

Voxel 246
• Outcast, a game made by Belgian developer Appeal, sports outdoor landscapes that are rendered by a voxel
engine. [2]
• The videogame Amok for the Sega Saturn makes use of voxels in its scenarios.
• The computer game Vangers uses voxels for its two-level terrain system. [3]
• The computer game Thunder Brigade was based entirely on a voxel renderer, according to BlueMoon Interactive
making videocards redundant and offering increasing detail instead of decreasing detail with proximity.
• Master of Orion III uses voxel graphics to render space battles and solar systems. Battles displaying 1000 ships at
a time were rendered slowly on computers without hardware graphic acceleration.
• Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri uses voxel models to render units.
• Build engine first-person shooter games Shadow Warrior and Blood use voxels instead of sprites as an option for
many of the items pickups and scenery. Duke Nukem 3D has an optional voxel model pack created by fans, which
contains the high resolution pack models converted to voxels.
• Crysis uses a combination of heightmaps and voxels for its terrain system.
• Worms 4: Mayhem uses a "poxel" (polygon and voxel) engine to simulate land deformation similar to the older
2D Worms games.
• The multi-player role playing game Hexplore uses a voxel engine allowing the player to rotate the isometric
rendered playfield.
• Voxelstein 3D also uses voxels for fully destructible environments. [4]
• The upcoming computer game Voxatron, produced by Lexaloffle, will be composed and generated fully using
[5] [6]
voxels.
• Ace of Spades uses Ken Silverman's Voxlap engine.
• The game Blockade Runner uses a Voxel engine.
Voxel editors
While scientific volume visualization doesn't require modifying the actual voxel data, voxel editors can be used to
create art (especially 3D pixel art) and models for voxel based games. Some editors are focused on a single approach
to voxel editing while others mix various approaches. Some common approaches are:
• Slice based – The volume is sliced in one or more axes and the user can edit each image individually using 2D
raster editor tools. These generally store color information in voxels.
• Sculpture – Similar to the vector counterpart but with no topology constraints. These usually store density
information in voxels and lack color information.
• Building blocks – The user can add and remove blocks just like a construction set toy.
• Minecraft is a game built around a voxel art editor, where the player builds voxel art in a monster infested voxel
world.
Voxel editors for games
Many game developers use in-house editors that are not released to the public, but a few games have publicly
available editors, some of them created by players.
• Slice based fan-made Voxel Section Editor III for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Command &
Conquer: Red Alert 2. [7]
• SLAB6 and VoxEd are sculpture based voxel editors used by Voxlap engine games, [8] [9] including Voxelstein 3D
and Ace of Spades.
• The official Sandbox 2 editor for CryEngine 2 games (including Crysis) has support for sculpting voxel based
terrain. [10]