The creators of two independent games talk about the reemergence of voxels, the visual style inspired by Minecraft and the nitty gritty details of voxel technology.
Voxels are back in vogue. Actually, for the first time ever, volumetric pixels represent one of gaming's most popular visual styles. Since 2009, Minecraft has inspired countless designers to give the 8-bit pixel art look a 3D makeover, spawning small indie games like Voxatron and full retail releases like 3D Dot Game Heroes. Voxels aren't a new technology--in fact, game developers have been using voxels in place of polygons since the 1990s, in games like Comanche and Outcast. But then Minecraft arrived. While voxels were once a clever solution for programmers struggling with the limitations of early 3D graphics processing, they've become a popular, instantly recognizable graphical style that millions of people can point to and say "Hey, that looks like Minecraft!"
