Building with MagicVoxel (getting your feet wet)

[RSoM LuckySheep]

This started as introducing a friend to MagicaVoxel. In doing so, I noticed there's a new version. I had to reteach myself a few little things to get up to speed with it. But I thought this was an excellent opportunity to whet some whistles with this software. If you're interested in big builds, or even smaller builds with good geometric shapes, playing around with this software is a great idea. To get you started & show you a few ways I use it, we're going to make a 43x43x22 dome.

MagicaVoxel is written by Ephtracy. When you Google it, you might find a few "official" websites. Download from the first one with Ephtracy in its URL. It should show .99 as the latest version.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1232803620
When you first open MagicaVoxel .99 it might look a little busy. Compared to many editors, there's not too much going on here. You should grasp a lot of it pretty quickly. There is stuff I never use, there will probably be stuff you never use. Left click uses whatever tool you have selected. Right click rotates your build around (you should be in perspective view by default). Your scroll wheel zooms in & out, or you can click it to move the object up, down, & sideways.

First thing's first: We need an empty palette. Under "brush" to the left, select the little arrow that's pointing up towards a dashed line. That's your select tool. Below that, make sure "V" is selected (for volume) or "A" (all of a certain color). Click the big cube in the center of the screen and everything should be selected. Hit delete. Empty canvas. Now at the top, a little toward the right, click the numbers next to "world". These are the dimensions of your build. Default is 40 40 40. We want 43 43 43. Just use arrow keys, delete, & backspace to move around & edit this. Hit enter when done.

You now have a 43x43x43 empty build. To the top right you'll see an "edit" tab. That little bar to the left of "edit" allows you to drag & resize the window. Pull it out & you'll find 4 hidden menus. We want the "shape" menu. Under "shape" click "elli". This will fill your build with a large sphere. This will eventually be our dome, but first we need to hollow it out. Just above "shape" you'll see the "misc" menu. Under "misc" select "shell". You won't see a change yet. Your sphere was solid. The "shell" command made it hollow. Very, very useful in Creativerse builds since nearly all are hollow.

We will now cut our sphere in half (or nearly) to make a dome. The easiest way to do this is to change the view. Way at the bottom of the screen you will see "pers" highlighted for perspective view. Change this to "orth" for orthographic view. It might also help to go a little left of this & click "grid" so you can see each block that makes up your build stand out some more. To the right of "orth" you'll see a button that looks like a speedometer. When you mouse over it you'll see that it says "recenter camera". Click this.

You're now looking directly at a side of your empty sphere. The grid is perfectly flat. This makes it perfect for our next selection tool. Under "brush" at the top left, click the button that looks like a dashed square. This is a click & drag selection tool. Below it, click "rect". This will let you click anywhere, drag a rectangle shape, & select everything inside it, similar to most other editing programs. Use it to select the bottom half of your sphere, then hit delete.

Your dome is complete! Move it around & look how wonderful it is. But we're not finished with MagicaVoxel yet. We still need to build this dome in game. For this, I recommend coming out of orthographic mode ("orth") and selecting "pers" or "iso" instead, but the choice is yours. Back under your "edit" menu near the right you'll find the "loop" menu. This will show you what other programs call "slices", or horizontal levels of your build. Use the +Z and -Z buttons to move your build up & down. As it passes through the floor, you'll get 1 slice at a time coming out of the ceiling. This is your "map" if you will. Get a single slice showing on the ceiling of your build. Build this circle in game. Click -Z, build the 2nd level of blocks. Click -Z, build the 3rd level, etc, etc.

If you're interested in using this program further, Ephtracy also has a few things on Youtube that will show you more capabilities. The tutorial link from the official website is for the previous version, but you should see a link to the .99 preview in the titles to the right (you might have to scroll down).

[Xoff]

Tried that on my mac, unfortunately, the window of the application is just plain black and nothing I did could change that Not sure what's wrong here.

[RSoM LuckySheep]

I haven't tested the Mac version, but .99 just came out. It could still have issues. You can try an older version if you like.