The interface

Everything Voxel Mode adds lives in five places. Once you know them, you know where to look for anything.

1. The toolbar: the voxel tools, shown only while you edit a voxel model.
2. The tool settings: brush shape, colour and mirror for the active tool.
3. The status: model name, size, voxel count, and how many are selected.
4. The Voxel tab: every panel the add-on has.
5. The tab itself: click Voxel if another sidebar tab is showing.

1. The Voxel tab (sidebar)

Press N in the 3D Viewport and click Voxel. The tab reads top to bottom in the order you work:

Section	What it is for
Voxel Mode	The model you are working on: its name, size and voxel count, plus Add Voxel Model, Fill With Shape, Finalise To Mesh and Enter/Exit Voxel Mode.
Voxel Library	Browse and place ready-made shapes, and organise your own.
Character	Rig a model as a biped, quadruped or slime, then play and edit animations.
Voxel Generators	Fill the model with terrain, trees, buildings, whole scenes.
Voxelize Mesh	Turn an ordinary mesh into a voxel model.
Import	Open .vox files as editable models.
Export	Engine presets, .vox export, sprite sheets, the Unreal live link.

Only Voxel Mode starts open; the rest cost one row each until you open them. Blender remembers what you opened, per file.

Inside Voxel Mode there are sub-panels:

Sub-panel	Holds
New Model	Size, voxel size, starting shape and Hollow for the next new model
Brush	Lock To Plane, Match Colour, Fill Grid Sides, the Shape brush tip, Mirror X/Y/Z, Snap To Voxel Grid
Display	Cursor, pivot gizmo, bounds, other models’ bounds, the voxel grid overlay
Palette	The 256 swatches, primary and secondary colour, palette load/save, the built-in palettes
↳ Material	Roughness, metallic, emission, opacity, specular, transmission and IOR of the picked swatch
Selection	Select all/none/invert, connected, grow/shrink, same colour; move, duplicate, rotate, scale, mirror, fill, delete
Reshape	Grow, Shrink and Hollow the model or the selection
Shapes	Place, save, import and export a single shape
Grid	Resize the model, change voxel size, rebuild, benchmark
Groups	Name the parts of a model for splitting and rigging
Rig (Advanced)	Preview the skeleton built from your groups

2. The toolbar (Edit Mode)

With a voxel model in Edit Mode, the toolbar on the left shows only the tools that do something here:

Tool	Key	Does
Attach	D	Adds voxels
Erase	E	Removes voxels
Paint	R (or P)	Recolours voxels
Select	Q (or W, K)	Three tools in one slot: Select Voxels (box), Select Same Colour, Select Group

Press Q again to cycle through the three select tools, or click and hold the toolbar button to pick one. Blender’s own 3D cursor, Annotate and Measure stay available too.

Edit an ordinary mesh and the toolbar is Blender’s own again. Voxel Mode’s tools and keys only answer on voxel models.

3. The tool header

Across the top of the viewport, the tool header shows:

• Status: the model’s name, its dimensions (W×H×D), how many voxels it holds and how many are selected.
• The active tool’s settings: brush shape, mirror, and so on.

While you drag, a short hint appears bottom-left in the viewport saying what the current keys do, for example X/Y/Z lock R turn S size.

4. The settings pie

Press Shift + Alt + S anywhere over the model and a pie opens under the mouse:

                 Lock To Plane
                       │
    Show Voxel Grid ───┼─── Fill Grid Sides
                       │
        Mirror X ───── ✦ ───── Mirror Y
                       │
      Match Colour ────┼─── Align To Voxel Grid
                       │
                   Mirror Z

Press, flick, release. Everything in it is also in the Brush panel; the pie just saves a trip to the top of the screen.

5. Viewport overlays

You see	It means
A green outline	The model you are editing
A yellow outline	The model under the mouse. Ctrl + Alt + click switches to it
A blue outline	Other voxel models (turn on Show Other Models in Display)
A white hover cube	Where a click will add
A red hover cube or box	What a click will erase
A coloured hover cube	What a paint click will write
Orange voxels	The selection
A white ghost	Where a move or duplicate will land
Three rings and a cross	The pivot, shown only while a rotate or scale is running

Object Mode vs Edit Mode

• Object Mode is for whole models: select, move, duplicate (Shift + D), delete (X) and resize (S). A voxel model behaves like any other object.
• Edit Mode (Tab) is for voxels. It’s where the tools, the palette and the selection work.

Menus Voxel Mode adds to

Menu	Entry
Add ▸ Voxel (Object Mode, Shift + A)	A new model in any starting shape, placed at the 3D cursor; Import Voxels (.vox); From Selected Mesh; From Finalised Voxel Mesh
Shift + A in Edit Mode	The Voxel Library, to place a shape
Object ▸ Convert	Finalise To Mesh, or rebuild a model from a finalised mesh
File ▸ Import	Voxels (.vox)
File ▸ Export	Voxel Model (.glb/.fbx) (engine presets) and Voxels (.vox)
Right-click a shape	Draw With it as a brush tip, Open it to correct it, Delete it

A dedicated workspace (optional)

Turn on Use A Voxel Workspace in the preferences and a new model switches you to a Voxel workspace. It’s a copy of the one you were on, set to Solid shading with vertex colour so models look painted. The Voxel Workspace button in the Voxel tab does the same on demand.