VokCel is a very simple, yet powerfully versatile, modular blocky-voxel sandbox creation system. In VokCel, you can create any blocky-voxel model, combine it with other models in a modular fashion, animate it, give it more life via sound and use it as you wish within a procedurally generated, fully modifiable sandbox world. Without further ado, let's take a quick dive into what it offers.
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| title screen |
BUILDING CUSTOM PIECES
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| creating a piece |
In few words, to build a blocky-voxel model, users would only need to draw whatever shape they want 2-dimensionally and then commit a build for it to be transformed into a 3-dimensional shape. That's it! The media below demonstrates how:
There's not much more to it than that. It is also possible to slice the blocks that have been created:
Combining these two things allows one to create complex shapes of all kinds, which can be seen here:
With that, it is possible to create any blocky-voxel shape, but that's not all, these models can also be combined to create interesting compound forms.
JOINING CUSTOM PIECES
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| joining pieces together |
In VokCel, joined models are of two kinds: figures and avatars. Figures are static models that would go inside the procedurally generated world, like an animated windmill for example. Avatars are living things that would inhabit the world. Just like in the prior section, it is very easy to combine pieces together to create a compound object. The media below demonstrates how:
This way, it's easy to create all sorts of compound models, such as the one below that a few of you may be familiar with:
The pieces are joined together hierarchically and can be modified in terms of position, rotation and scale. As can be seen, this means that anything can further be created, in a way that allows for modular movement as well. After creating any compound model they want, users can animate them.
ANIMATE COMPOUND MODELS
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| animate compound models |
VokCel allows users to animate the compound models they have created in any way they want. They can change the position, rotation and scale and use keyframes to animate. The process is extremely easy: just modify the model as you desire per keyframe and click play to watch the magic happen! That's really it:
The animation speed can also be modified as the media below demonstrates:
It is possible to add sounds to the animations created, as well as to static models.
ADDING SOUNDS
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| adding sounds to assets |
There are different forms of sound in a game: animation sounds, consume sounds, equip sounds, mount sounds and so on. VokCel will allow users to attach multiple sounds to their created models. This is a straightforward process that involves uploading an appropriate sound to a model and then creating a few settings that determine how it is played: how many times it is repeated and whether there is a delay between repetitions.
This marks the end of the "studio mode" that allows the user to create their in-game assets. The files of these assets are quite small, usually averaging only 500kb. Next comes putting what has been created into a modifiable, procedurally generated world.
ENTERING THE MAIN GAME
There are two game modes: edit mode and game mode. Edit mode allows users to create custom "sessions" and easily shape the type of experience they or other users will go through. Game mode allows users to play within these custom sessions. A session can be anything a user wants it to be, a fantasy type, rpg, military, city-sim, etc.
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| proceeding to the game |
Entering the game is as easy as choosing what you'd want to play as: a single piece, a figure or an avatar, loading up created animations, button-mapping and then going into the game. Users can also pre-fill the world with certain assets and also control the appearance of the terrain, but this part is optional. This is all demonstrated in the sample below:
A FEW INSIGHTS ON IN-GAME-EXPERIENCE
At this time, only a few things can be stated on VokCel's in-game experience as there is still some work to be done. This will be demonstrated through a few quick clips:
1. Adding assets into the game:
2. Adding assets via grid-mode:
3. Terrain Tools demo:
4. Traversal Mode-Swimming:
5. Modify ambience demo: Time and Weather:
6. Adding an Avatar into the scene:
7. Follow and Roaming Sample:
As can be seen, the process is extremely simple and straightforward. There is no need to clutter it with all sorts of things that make the process of self-expression cumbersome and intimidating.
For now, that suffices to serve as an introduction to VokCel. In the coming weeks, as development continues and a proper launch date approaches, more will be revealed. I hope this introductory post has piqued your interest and you are able to see the many possibilities that VokCel does and will offer. The system requirements to use it are low and it will initially launch on Windows, MacOS and Linux operating systems. To learn more, please see the About page.
Thank you, until next time!
Gust.
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