Voxel Mode
Voxel mode is where you build a model from nothing. Instead of pushing vertices around, you block out a solid from simple shapes — boxes, spheres, cylinders, curves, drawn outlines — adding some and cutting others away, then reshape, mirror and copy them until the form is right. Vertexix turns the result into a surface you can sculpt, paint and retopologize like any other model. To get there, click Voxel, the fourth of the mode tabs at the top of the sidebar, beside Retopology, Paint and Sculpt.
How a voxel scene works
Everything you make is a node in a tree, listed in the Voxel Tree window. Each shape either adds to the solid, cuts itself out of it, or keeps only where it overlaps — Add, Subtract or Intersect, switched from the shape's row in the Voxel Tree. Shapes stay editable: you can move, resize or reshape any of them at any time, and the views update to show the new form.
While you work, the views show a live preview. The real surface — the polygons the other tabs work on — is built from the shapes when you leave the Voxel tab for Sculpt, Paint or Retopology, or when you ask for it with Build Surface Now. How fine that surface is depends on the voxel size.
For bodies and creatures there is also the Sphere Chain tool, the last button of the Shapes accordion: drop balls that link into a body, pose it, and send it to Sculpt as a smooth solid or a clean quad skin.
The four-pane view
Voxel mode always splits the viewport into four panes, each a different view of the same scene. The first time they appear they are Top (top left), Perspective (top right), Back (bottom left) and Right (bottom right). The axis views are orthographic and locked to their axis — they are the views you draw, measure and line things up in. The Perspective pane orbits freely, so you can look at the form from any angle.
Each pane has its own title bar:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| View dropdown (left) | Which way the pane looks. Top, Bottom, Front, Back, Left and Right lock the pane to that axis; Perspective and Orthographic both orbit freely and differ only in projection. |
| Display dropdown | What the pane shows: Solid, PBR, World Normals, Depth or Vertex Colors, plus Wireframe and Grid. Each pane keeps its own choice. |
| Expand (right edge) | Fills the whole viewport area with this pane. Click it again to restore the four panes. |
Clicking the empty middle of a title bar makes that pane the active one without changing anything else.
Moving around
Each pane is navigated with the same mouse controls as the main viewport (see Viewport Navigation & Status Bar), and the panes are linked so they stay one scene at one scale:
- Zoom is shared by every pane — zoom in one and the others follow.
- Panning an axis view slides the other axis views with it, so the subject stays lined up in Top, Back and Right. The Perspective pane keeps its own centre.
- View All (A by default) frames the scene in the pane under the mouse, and the other panes take on its zoom.
A tour of the Voxel palette
The sidebar holds the Voxel palette. Its tool sections are accordions you can open and close independently; the size, transform and file controls are pinned to the bottom of the column. Most tools put their settings in the Numeric window, which opens when you pick them. From top to bottom:
| Section | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Shapes | The ten shapes — Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone, Capsule, Round Cone, Torus, Pyramid, Prism and Gear. Click one, then drag it out in an axis view. See Shapes & Cuts. |
| Curve and Free Form | The last two buttons in Shapes: a curve drawn point by point, and an outline drawn with anchors that becomes a solid when it closes. See Curves & Free Form. |
| Modify: Move, Rotate, Scale | The transform handles for the selection. See Move, Rotate, Scale & Pivot. |
| Modify: Mirror | Mirror mode: everything you add or change is mirrored across X, Y and/or Z until you turn it off. See Mirror, Clone & Multiply. |
| Modify: Mask | Paint or draw a mask on the model, then cut with it. See Voxel Mask. |
| Modify: Cut, Add, Select (Face) | Split the model along a lasso, box, circle, polygon or line; raise a drawn shape out of the surface or dig it in; select a flat surface. See Shapes & Cuts. |
| Transform | Taper, Twist, Bend, Shear and Drag Net reshape the selection; Offset grows or shrinks it and Shell hollows it. See Taper, Twist, Bend, Shear & Drag Net. |
| Multiply | Clone makes copies of the selection, each a step further on. See Mirror, Clone & Multiply. |
| Extend | Extrude pulls a flat face of the model out. See Shapes & Cuts. |
| Sculpt | Brushes for voxel nodes. This section is not shown in the palette in the current version; see Voxel Sculpt. |
| Preview detail and Voxel size | How finely the live preview is drawn, and how fine the real surface will be. See Voxel Size & Preview Detail. |
| X / Y / Z fields, Mouse / Selection / Pivot / Origin, Units and snap | Exact position, size or rotation of the selected node, the point the tools work about, and the unit and snap step. See Move, Rotate, Scale & Pivot. |
| Group / Ungroup | Wrap the selected nodes in a group, or dissolve one. See Voxel Tree, Numeric & Edit Node. |
| Scene and Selected node: Save... / Load... | Save and open whole scenes (.vxv) or single objects (.vxo). See Saving & Loading Scenes. |
| Build Surface Now | The surface status line and the button that builds it. In a document holding an imported mesh the button reads Replace the Loaded Mesh. See From Voxels to a Mesh. |
The Voxel Tree and Numeric windows are not in the sidebar. Open them from the Window menu; both are dockable.
Keyboard shortcuts
These are the defaults in Voxel mode. Several share a key with another action elsewhere in the app — T, H, R and Tab, for instance — and only take that key over while the Voxel tab is open. All of them can be changed under Settings > Keyboard Setting.
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| T | Move tool |
| Y | Rotate tool |
| H | Scale tool |
| Shift+H | Bounds tool |
| R | Edit Voxel Size: show the voxel size on the model and drag in a view to change it |
| Shift+W | Switch between solid and wireframe only |
| Tab | Outline negative node: draw a wire box round the selected shape when it subtracts, since a cut has no surface of its own to see |
| Ctrl+X | Cut the selected nodes |
| Ctrl+C | Copy the selected nodes |
| Ctrl+V | Paste, selecting what was pasted |
| Delete | Delete the selected nodes, asking first if any of them has children |
| A | View All in the pane under the mouse |
| Return / Esc | Keep or drop the result of a running tool such as Twist, Bend or Shear |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Shift+Z | Redo |
The Mirror, Twist and Curve tools also have keyboard actions (Voxel: Mirror Tool, Voxel: Twist Tool, Voxel: Curve Tool) with no key assigned by default.
Undo
Voxel mode has its own undo history, separate from Paint's and Sculpt's. Each finished gesture — a drag, a typed value, a shape added or deleted — is one step, and the history keeps the last 128 steps.
While a tool is running, Ctrl+Z steps back through that tool's own changes and leaves the tool on, rather than reaching past it into the scene. When the tool has nothing left to undo, the status bar says so; press Esc to cancel the tool, or Return to keep it, and undo then works on the scene again.