SpriteStack Voxel Editor

[rezoner]

Ahoy. I am the author of SpriteStack. I am really honored to be on HN front page and I would like to straighten some misconceptions about this app.

The version that is available and its trailer has little to do with the current state of the application.

New release brings voxels, lowpoly and sprites together to create 3D animated game objects and export them as 2D spritesheets. It's purpose is not to replace your favorite software (Aseprite, MagicaVoxel, PicoCAD...) but to bind them all together into something even more useful from a 2D gamedeveloper point of view. So it can import - a lot of things.

Please check this post/video that is more accurate about what SpriteStack is than the 2019 trailer https://www.patreon.com/posts/spritestack-2021-53317888

[wcarss]

Hi rezoner, this tool (both versions) look so cool!

I saw you ask on twitter a few days ago for explanations from people who may have looked but then didn't buy, and I'd like to offer my own experience if you're interested.

I'm at most a hobby artist+gamedev, so I expect I might download this and play around with it for a few days, then forget that I ever had it for ~months, before playing around with it again someday. Because of that pattern, I don't make a lot of purchases for art's sake, e.g. I have wanted pico8 for a long time, yet never acted to buy it. I end up setting a bit of an unfairly high bar for believing I'll actually get use out of a new cool thing like this.

So then, looking around and seeing a new version is coming soon with a lot of big changes/features, and today's version is $30, my immediate question is "would a license for today's version grant access to the new one?"

With that in mind, I looked around on your twitter, your patreon, your itch.io, and a few of your website pages, and I wasn't able to find an answer. I might have just missed it! But that left me feeling scared that I'll pay $30 today and in 3 weeks or something, there'll be a new cool thing that I can't have. But I know that if I just wait a while, I'll likely be able to get the new thing then. So... it pushes me toward wanting to wait, even despite your reasonable request for help in funding development of the new thing I want, which I want to help with.

I also saw a mention of access to a renderer coming soon, for patrons, but as an outsider I'm not sure what the renderer is with respect to the rest of the project. I looked over the patron levels and wasn't sure if there's a reason to choose one level over another, outside of how much I want to contribute. Not that there needs to be! But I wondered about it, and the uncertainty gave me enough anxiety to kind of put off the whole decision. And now we're here. :)

So, to recap:

- I want to contribute to your patreon to feel like I'm helping

- I want to buy spritestack (especially the new one, but also the current one)

- I'd be willing to pay probably $40-50 today

- I'm scared I might pay, then miss out on some benefit, and it's making me defer the decision

Anyway, good luck!

[Kiro]

I remember you made some pretty awesome .io games in this style. Are they still online?

[stu2b50]

Hi, think this looks really cool, although I am a little confused what I, a propsective consumer, should be doing. If I want to give this try, should I buy the current version? Is there a separate purchase for the new version? Does the license carry over?

tl;dr what/where should I buy at this current moment

[dang]

Past related posts:

Spritestack – 3D pixelart editor based on sprite stacking technique - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19325331 - March 2019 (36 comments)

SpriteStack: A Sprite Stacking 3D Pixel Art Editor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19283781 - March 2019 (1 comment)

[pjs_]

I saw something similar done in PICO8, pretty much an 8-bit Blender, looks absolutely nuts: https://twitter.com/johanpeitz/status/1365356945708896265?la...

[Impossible]

Pico CAD is a full low poly modeling tool in Pico 8. It's very different from an implementation standpoint than SpriteStack, which is voxel editor, rather than a polygon modeler. They are only similar in both being low resolution, resulting in a similar aesthetic.

[rezoner]

FYI - SpriteStack has a direct support for PicoCAD files (without need to convert them to anything else) - https://twitter.com/rezoner/status/1412759115370307584

[spicybright]

I have so many questions. The only thing I know about pico8 is it's a VM for very low end hardware, it used a hexidecimal numpad as it's interface, and black and white.

I just ran the download from the website and it's so much more than that. Are there any other resources to learn more about this?

[hartator]

In the featured art, I don't see the why of the voxel sprites compared to the beautiful 3D rendering.

I probably love my old classic games more than average. (Still have Prince of Persia 1989 installed.) And love some new indie game with old graphics. (FTL is awesome if you haven't tried it yet.) But 3D and proper physics enable so much more. It feels odd that so much time is spend on recreating old game feeling for some nostalgia sake compared to let's say exploring new 3D physics engine. (Teardown is an indie awesome game if you want to play with an adventurous physics engine in 3D.)

[dantondwa]

Every art has its why. Check out the wonderful work by @MadMaraca [1] as an example of what one can do with voxels. They're truly stunning. I think that the limitations of voxel art are also its expressive power.

Pixel art didn't replace at all painting, nor did it aspire to do that. But it founds its beautiful niche, and there's beauty in that.

[1] https://twitter.com/MadMaraca

[armchairhacker]

For action, adventure, racing games, I agree that 3D is almost always better than 2D. Running around in first-person or third-person is way more immersive and gives much more freedom and depth than anything else.

But for strategy games, 2D can still be good. e.g. for card and board games games, even a "3D" game is just 3D graphics over a 2D playing field. Tower defense, factory-building (Factorio). These games have 3D versions but they aren't particularly better than the 2D ones.

[rezoner]

It's not really just the nostalgia. It's taking the base from that point in time while applying things that were not computationally possible back in the day. It's a continuation of that style that many simply appreciate and it's not going away anywhere. Sure we can have photorealistic movies but somehow people still appreciate cartoons.

[javajosh]

On possible reason is that, at least in theory, it's far less computationally intensive to render voxels because the polygon count is very, very low. So the style not only has intrinsic aesthetic value, but will be less demanding on constrained devices like phones and portable game systems like the DS.

[jkochis]

With a sprite sheet export you could simulate the 3D rendering using CSS animation and background image position [1]. Some front end developers enjoy challenging themselves by using just HTML and CSS (no JS) to create complex interactive experiences.

[1] https://blog.logrocket.com/making-css-animations-using-a-spr...

[foopod]

Voxels/SpriteStacking/3dModelling is more of the how, they can all produce great looking 2d renderings.

I imagine the difference is more based around how the creator wants to create. If you are a 2d artist then jumping into 3d modelling can be a step learning curve, but voxel or sprite stacking are generally more forgiving.

[rpastuszak]

I think you might like Death Trash, I’m running to catch a plane so you’ll have to google it!

[yorak]

Nice. The resulting graphics style reminds me of a Short Hike, which is a family friendly bite sized 3D adventure and exploration game. I'm not affiliated in any way, just enjoyed the game with my kid. It has a nice balance of story, challenges, and some platformer action. https://ashorthike.com/

Edit: IIRC the shader a Short Hike used was discussed in the GDC talk by the game's author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW8gWgpptI8

[gfodor]

If you want to import VOX from apps like this and work on them together, my collaboration app Jel (jel.app) might be worth checking out.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajTePjJNjoY

[strogonoff]

In latest Safari, none of the videos on the landing page or in the docs work. The only way is to right-click each, choose “Download video” and view locally.

[lbotos]

In Firefox, they play, but show "aborted due to network error" but keep playing. (which was interesting)

[Kuinox]

Safari is the new IE.

[gaetgu]

works on safari 15.0. Might be an issue with the sight being overvisited so the server was being overloaded

[mdtrooper]

There is a awesome Voxel Editor https://goxel.xyz/ because it is free software and it is coded in C++.

It is close near mature state (or I think it with love).

[atum47]

When I was studying 3D on the web, I saw an example by Mr. Doob (three.js) and I tried to do something similar.

https://victorribeiro.com/voxel/

Very rustic, don't work 100% on mobile but an attempt was made.

I think keys 0-9 selects tile. Shift click deletes and clicking and dragging on the sides of the screen rotates the camera

[qq4]

This reminds me of Tiberium Sun units. I always enjoyed the voxel models in that game and wondered why there weren't more tools available for modelling similar things.

[rezoner]

These units were a huge inspiration for me - if you dig through various modding forums you will notice that they use a lot of unknown dedicated software and that there are tons of models created outside of the gamedev bubble by extremely talented people that have nothing to do with the industry on a daily basis and because of that they remain pretty much anonymous.

[ElHacker]

This is great! I really like the retro look on the example models and the video.

I've never edited voxel models with the spritestacking 2D technique, I'll give it a try. Is it more efficient than placing voxels in a 3D viewport?

On a side note I've been building my own very simple voxel editor in VR you can take a look at it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiaGvePo6jo

[rezoner]

No - spritestacking is not as effective for the most of things but there is something playful about it - it changes the way you think about what you draw which imposes an unique style on your creations.

[CyberRabbi]

In these examples, are the voxel models being isometrically projected into a low res 2D space? Stylistically that seems kind of strange. I would expect either projecting a voxel model into a high res space, or projecting a high poly model into a low res space.

Also there doesn’t seem to be any anti-aliasing applied which would be a bare minimum here. Anyone have a good idea why the webmaster made these choices?

[ujuj]

Steam reviews seem to highlight documentation and development issues! It is sad, the tool seems to be fine. Reminds me of aseprite (which is more 2d): https://www.aseprite.org/

[myth_drannon]

The developer responded on the forum:

Q: "Has SpriteStack been abandoned?"

A: "Nope. 2020 was terrible for me in terms of ability to work. SpriteStack has been rewriten from the ground - it's just terribly delayed because I did not expected things to go that way."

You can check his Patreon account for updates on the rewrite

[toxik]

Maybe something on my end but the video didn’t work. Wrong encoding for iPhones?

[can16358p]

Not working on my iPhone too. Not your end. Video is broken.

[gorwell]

This looks perfect for retro indie games. Anyone here have experience with it? Are the results usually as expected or are there often edge cases where you have to edit the exported model?

[thebeardisred]

Happy to see this exists. I had a freaky dream about software like this a few weeks ago. I'm glad it was just passively synthesizing background noise. :D

[haolez]

I imagine that this facilitates synthetic art generated by algorithms. For example, for creating unique NPCs when needed. Neat!

[ionwake]

This is awesome all my respects to the creators I hope it can be easily used to port models across to games will be following

[gnarbarian]

I love the retro jagged raster art style.

[qwertox]

That trailer is a piece of art. Well done.

[rezoner]

Thank you. It's coded from start to end because I am not familiar with any software that do trailers. I first coded it then wrote music (in FLStudio) that is aligned with events in a demo.