MOSSBACK STUDIOHow to bring a MagicaVoxel model into Blockbench
- Press Open a model and pick the .vox file, or drop it on the page.
- Read the status line: it tells you how many cubes the model became.
- Press Download .bbmodel, then in Blockbench: File > Open Model.
What you get
- Cubes. One voxel is one Blockbench unit (a sixteenth of a block), so a 16 voxel wide model is one block wide. Neighbouring voxels of the same colour are joined into the biggest boxes that fit, which keeps the cube count low.
- One palette texture with a pixel per colour that the model uses. Every cube face points at its colour, so you can repaint a colour for the whole model by changing one pixel.
- Several models in one file keep their places. Rotated parts keep their place but not their rotation; the status line tells you when that happens.
- The model stands on the floor, centred. MagicaVoxel's up (Z) becomes Blockbench's up (Y).
- Not kept: materials such as glass and glow, layers and names.
Keeping the cube count low
A model with large areas of one colour becomes few cubes. A model with noise, dithering or gradients becomes very many, because every colour change starts a new cube. If you want it for Minecraft, where models with fewer cubes behave better, flatten the colours in MagicaVoxel first.
The result is a generic Blockbench model. For a Minecraft Java block or item, use File > Convert Project in Blockbench; that format allows only rotations in steps of 22.5 degrees and a limited size, which plain voxel cubes already fit.
Something missing that you need? Tell me, requests decide what I add next.
Other formats
- bbmodel to GLB / glTF: one file with textures and animations.
- bbmodel to OBJ: for programs that do not read glTF.
- bbmodel to PNG: a picture of the model, or its textures.
- GLB / glTF to bbmodel: open a glTF model in Blockbench.
- OBJ to bbmodel: an OBJ with its textures as a Blockbench project.
- FBX to bbmodel: an FBX model as a Blockbench project.
- Also read: .dae (Collada), .stl and .ply. Open them on any of these pages and press Download .bbmodel.
- Writing FBX: not done here. Save as GLB, open it in Blender (File > Import > glTF 2.0) and export FBX from there.
- Minecraft JSON (Java block / item models, Bedrock geometry): that is Blockbench's own job, File > Export in Blockbench. This page is for getting a model out to other programs.
