Thread - Avoyd 0.18.0 - Material Masks, Move Sun Here, Repair .Vox Files

Avoyd Full 0.18.0 is out with changes affecting mainly the Voxel Editor:

• Voxel Editor new tool modifier called Material Masks. Masks are useful for editing or protecting some parts of a voxel model. They're inspired by 2D masks you can find in image editing software, but in 3D, and they apply to voxel materials.
• Move Sun Here feature: in the main view right click and select "Move Sun Here" to move the sun to the mouse location.
• Import and Repair some .vox files: support for loading some forms of corrupt MagicaVoxel .vox files and retrieving as much useful voxel data as possible.
• Up to 1.5x faster rendering performance with improved power saving.

Material Masks

To access the Material Masks functionality go through the following:

1. Open the Voxel Editor.
2. Open menu Tools > Edit Tool.
3. Open the Material Masks section.
4. Tick Use Material Masks.
5. Choose whether you want to Edit or Protect features.
6. Choose the feature:
   • Empty voxels, empty space in the 3D world.
   • Occupied voxels, occupied space: the model.
   • Occupied by Material selected: voxels set to a specific material.
     1. Select the Material you want to edit or protect by selecting a swatch or using the Pick Material.
     2. Press the Use Current Material button.
7. Use the editor as you would normally.
   • Keep in mind that some actions may not have any effect due to Material Masks being on.
   • When Material Masks are on, you'll see a small mask icon reminder next to the Edit Tool's Do action button.

You'll notice that the masks settings are partially redundant. For instance, Edit + Empty is equivalent to Protect + Occupied. This is because depending on what you want to do, one combination of settings can be more intuitive to think of than the other. Hopefully you find the functionality easy to use this way.

Tutorials

Some examples of how to use masks: removing and adding water to a world (also works for fog and clouds), and paint a specific area of a model.

Remove the Water from a Scene

How to remove the sea from a boat scene without affecting the boat nor the shapes that are underwater.

1. Setup

   1. Download the Boat.avwr world file.
   2. Open Boat.avwr in the Voxel Editor with File > Open.

2. Use Masks

   1. Open the Edit Tool.
   2. Tick Use Material Masks.
      1. Select Edit.
      2. Tick Occupied by Material.
         1. Select the water Material in the scene using the Pick tool.
         2. Press Use Current Material.
   3. Choose the Delete tool and a Cube shape around 100 voxels in size.
   4. Do Delete to erase all the water from the scene. <br/>All that remains are the boat, the fish, and the sea-floor with sea-grass and an anchor.

Add Water to a Scene

How to add water to a scene without overwriting it.

1. Setup

   1. Use the boat without water from the previous example or Download a world file and open it.
   2. Optional: to ensure you have a water Material you can add the Avoyd default Materials to the world:
      1. Merge the default Materials: select menu File > Merge Template > Default Materials
      2. Open Tools > Materials. You'll find the default Water and Ice in the list. It contains several types of water.

2. Use Masks

   1. Set the Material Masks to Protect and Occupied - Alternatively use Edit and Empty.
   2. Select Set, and a Box shape that is larger than the model.
   3. Select a water Material (you may have to get it from the Materials tool).
   4. Do Set to add water to the world. <br/>Water fills the empty spaces and leaves the world's occupied voxels untouched. <br/>Note - in Avoyd 0.18.0 you need to render to see through the water.

Paint Parts of a Car Body

How to selectively paint parts of a complex model. In this example we paint the yellow body of a camper-van in pink without affecting the inside, windows, lights chrome, nor the sections painted white.

1. Setup

   1. Download the Camper.avwr world file and open it.
   2. Optional: to ensure you have various Materials colours available, add the Avoyd default Materials to the world:
      1. Merge the default Materials: select menu File > Merge Template > Default Materials
      2. Open Tools > Materials. You'll find a collection of materials of various colours you can use.

2. Use Masks

   1. Set the Material Masks to Edit and Occupied by Material.
      1. Select the yellow car body Material using the Pick tool and press Use Current Material.
   2. Choose the Paint tool and a Cube shape at least 20 voxels wide.
   3. Select a pink Material.
   4. Do Paint over the car body. <br/>Only the yellow parts of the car body are painted pink. The rest is protected.

Example use of Material Masks: the camper voxel model with the yellow parts painted with dots made of various materials. We used the randomised size modifier to automatically change the size of the sphere hence dots. The other parts of the car are untouched.

Changelog

Added

• Voxel Editor - Edit Tool - Material Masks for editing or protecting some parts of a voxel world: empty space, occupied space, space occupied by a specified material. Menu Tools > Edit Tool, section 'Masks'.
• Voxel Editor - Light - UI - Move the main light with right click mouse context menu "Move Sun Here".
• Voxel Editor - Import - Improved ability for Avoyd to load corrupt .vox models by loading only the voxels with valid positions.

Changed

• Optimization - Implemented further SIMD (SSE) optimizations in maths library, voxel octree library and path tracing renderer.
• Voxel Editor - Render - Improved application efficiency & power saved by not drawing the 3D scene whilst showing the path traced render.
• Voxel Editor - Render - Optimised path tracing calculations and reduced rendering times but up to 1.5x (when including SIMD optimizations).
• Voxel Editor - Atmosphere - Atmosphere distance cap now set to twice the half length multiplied by the atmosphere amount. To approximately reproduce the old atmosphere set the amount to '5.0'.
• Voxel Editor - Atmosphere - Global Preset default 'Neutral' atmosphere set to extremely clear to reduce muting of colours. Menu Tools > Light and Atmosphere, section Presets
• Voxel Editor - Import - Tone down the grass and leaves colours in the Minecraft material: darkens the voxel colour of trees and leaves, for example 'minecraft:oak_leaves'. Menu File > Import > Minecraft Map or Structure (*.mca, *.nbt)
• Game - Optimization - Reduced the size of in game damage messages and improved performance of voxel modification.

Fixed

• Voxel Editor - Graphics - Resolved atmospheres with low half length being depth culled in orthographic view (making them black).
• Voxel Editor - Render - Setting the atmosphere amount to 0.0 no longer results in a completely white render.
• Voxel Editor - Render - Missed raycast hits on leaving non full transparent voxels which caused erroneous grid-like patterns.
• Voxel Editor - Atmosphere - Changing the atmospheric amount now produces the same result in both realtime view and Render. This makes it easier to get darker shadows.
• Voxel Editor - Import - Resolved crash when loading .vox models with a model not belonging to any layer (invalid layer index).

This thread covers the Beta releases we produce as we develop Avoyd 0.18.0, and relevant progress news.

Download - Changelog

Use this thread to give us feedback about the beta. Mention the full build number you're using, ex. "0.18.0.999".

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Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.770 is out with:

• Fixed - Voxel Editor - Graphics - Resolved atmospheres with low half length being depth culled in orthographic view (making them black).

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.771 is out with:

• Added - Voxel Editor - UI - Added right click menu "Move Sun Here".

To access the Move Sun Here tool:

• Install Avoyd 0.18.0 Beta.
• Right-mouse click on the sky where you want the main light to move to.
• Select Move Sun Here from the context menu.

For finer control of the sun position (available in 0.17.0):

• Open Tools > Light and Atmosphere.
• Edit the Light Direction coordinates, or the Light Azimuth Angle and Light Elevation Angle.

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.772 is out with:

• Fixed - Voxel Editor - Render - Setting the atmosphere amount to 0.0 no longer results in a completely white render.

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.773 is out with:

• Changed - Voxel Editor - Render - Optimized function call overhead and reduced rendering times but up to 1.3x.

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.775 is out with:

• Changed - Voxel Editor - Atmosphere - Atmosphere distance cap now set to twice the half length multiplied by the atmosphere amount. To approximately reproduce the old atmosphere set the amount to 5.0.
• Fixed - Voxel Editor - Render - Missed raycast hits on exiting non full transparent voxels which caused erroneous grid-like patterns.
• Fixed - Voxel Editor - Atmosphere - Changing the atmospheric amount now produces the same result in both realtime view and Render. This makes it easier to get darker shadows.

The atmosphere change and fix make it much easier for you to get higher contrast shadow/light by reducing the atmosphere amount and increasing the sun intensity.

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.776 is out with:

• Change - Optimization - Implemented further SIMD (SSE) optimizations in math library, voxel octree library and path tracing renderer.

Along with the previous optimizations the renderer is now up to 1.5x faster than in 0.17.0, and these optimizations also help Avoyd performance across the board.

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.779 is out with:

• Added - Voxel Editor - Import - Improved ability for Avoyd to load corrupt .vox models by loading only the voxels with valid positions.
• Fixed - Voxel Editor - Import - Resolved crash when loading .vox models with a model not belonging to any layer (invalid layer index).

Avoyd Beta 0.18.0.780 is out with:

• Changed - Voxel Editor - Render - Improved application efficiency & power saved by not drawing the 3D scene whilst showing the path traced render.