Today I am releasing Voxel Paint v1.5.0, which should be hitting all platforms within the coming days. There are a handful of changes in this release, so let's take a look at what is new!
Firstly, I have made some improvements to transforms/moving selected and grouped voxels, which was pretty buggy before. I mean, it's still probably a bit buggy, but it is better now!
All of the menu/toolbar items have been reorganized and rearranged to better fit in with recent changes to the Web App Core host. Menu item icons have been changed as well. The help menu also now contains in-app links to the Keyboard Shortcuts guide and a download link for the three.js Loader for .vpp files (which is used by games such as My Empire and My Colony 2 to load .vpp files into usable models for 3d scenes using three.js).
There is a new Insert menu that allows you to embed objects into your current painting. More objects will be coming soon, I was really wanting to test this out with today's release. The two items thus far are 'VPP Model' and 'Sphere.' VPP Model option lets you combine an existing VPP file into your current project. The imported data will be assigned as a single group which you can move and place as needed. The Sphere option will let you create a 3d voxel sphere with the specified radius and place it in your drawing. The sphere will take on whichever color is currently selected.
Speaking of the color selector, it has new options now. If you right-click on the color picker tool (long press on mobile), you will have options to add the current color to your favorites (or remove if it's already in favorites), or to change the currently grouped voxels into the selected color (if you have multiple voxels selected). This differs from the flood fill tool, as it will recolor
all selected voxels, not just those of a similar color.
There is going to be another update to the app next month some time that will add more shape import options. I will also be adding an "Illuminated Voxel" option which will only really pertain to the upcoming My Colony 2 and the upcoming Voxel Playground applications. This will make a voxel unaffected by world lighting conditions, but since Voxel Paint does not currently include any special rendering effects itself, it will only be a useful function if you are making models for the above mentioned applications.
Speaking of
Voxel Playground , it is a new web app I am working on to replace the previous
VPP Loader Test application, which was never meant to be released to begin with, and was more or less a simple test bed to get the graphics rendering working correctly for My Empire.
Voxel Playground is not much more than VPP Loader Test at the moment, but all future development is going to be going into Voxel Playground, and VPP Loader Test will be discontinued soon, so if you were using VPP Loader Test, then please update your links:
https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-playground/beta/
When I get the time to work on it, Voxel Playground is going to be a pretty cool application for making voxel artwork. It is going to let you fully customize your scenes, auto-generate terrain to your own specifications (or just have a flat plane), specify your own sky and lighting parameters, add your own lights, set animation frames, and more. I was actually going to be building it up so that I can use it to render a nice intro video for My Colony 2, so there is absolutely a lot of neat things coming soon to Voxel Playground, so keep an eye on it.
Anyway, that is all for this update. I know Voxel Paint hadn't been updated since July, but now that I am getting full swing into My Colony 2 development, Voxel Paint is going to need more regular updates to keep up with the requirements of the new game, so keep the suggestions and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more!