Minddesk Offers Qubicle 2 Beta Trial

Mindesk, creators of the swiss army knife of voxel modeling tools, Qubicle, are now offering a beta trail for the latest version, Qubicle 2.

Qubicle has likely been the most comprehensive set of tools ever offered for the specific intent in creating voxel style models and art. That tradition looks like it will continue with Qubicle 2.

Minddesk is also working on a Mac OS X version of Qubicle 2 which, according to the site, should be set for release sometime in October being 80% complete.

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Qubicle 2 Expands and Refines Feature Set

Qubicle 2 ads a host of workflow additions with some new tools and modifiers, as well as a new and improved mesh optimizing routine.

Formerly known as Qubicle Unit, what was a stand alone addition is now completely incorporated into the main application in Qubicle 2.

Unit can easily reduce the poly count of exported meshes significantly making them suitable for game development and real-time animation.

 

New tools in Qubicle 2

  • Resize objects’ workarea with the Resize Tool
  • Cut a matrix into two matrices with the Split Tool
  • Extrude a 2d area with the Extrude Tool
  • Draw a box of voxels with the Box Tool
  • Select a 3d area of voxels with the Box Select Tool
  • Freehand drawing in all modes and across multiple objects
  • Tool options alter the behaviour of tools (e.g. “contiguous” ans “threshold” 1 for the magic wand)
  • The new 2D Auto Mode automatically picks a slice to draw on, thus enabling you to draw in empty space
  • Mouse over object/voxel highlighting

Import / Export Additions

  • Improved open/save pipeline enables you to work directly on supported file-types without using import/export
  • Export Pivots enable you to set the pivots of exported meshes directly in Qubicle
  • Integrated Mesh Optimization (formerly know as Qubicle Unite) now creates manifold and non-manifold meshes 1 and supports texture sharing
  • Export as Collada .dae 1
  • Export as STL for 3D printing. Supports monochrome and color encoding. 1
  • Improved OBJ export 1

New Modifiers

  • New color modifier Sepia, Color Overlay, Posterize, Invert
  • Context sensitive smart actions take into account from which angle you are looking at the scene or which object is highlighted and alter their behaviour accordingly. Sounds complicated, feels perfectly intuitive.
  • Safe attach resizes a matrix automatically if detached voxels don’t fit into the workarea
  • Boolean operations Union, Subtract and Difference. Union – formerly known as Combine – can now combine multiple objects in one step
  • The object type Compound can group mulitple matrices (and Compounds) into a single object, thus enabling object hierachy
  • Align and Distribute objects

Misc

  • Locking helps you to protect finalized objects from modification
  • Customizable Quick Access Bar with 12 assignable slots for all kinds of actions
  • Right-click tool wheel with 5 custumizable slots for quick tool selection + quick access to the 3 edit modes
  • Custom keyboard shortcut assignment. Easily assignable via the mainmenu
  • New proprietary QBCL file format which stores a preview thumbnail and optional meta information like description or keywords
  • Import Adobe Swatch Exchange to easily transfer your swatch map from Photoshop to Qubicle

This video will teach you the very basics of how to edit voxel models with Qubicle 2.
Following topics are covered:
– Using the camera
– Framing objects
– Using tools
– Selecting and modifying objects
– Opening the matrix editor
– Selecting and modifying voxels
– Using the 3 edit modes