Voxel Graphics (1990s) — Atlas of Visual Effects

Highlighted Voxel in a Cubic Volume. An isometric arrangement of gray cubes forms a stepped volume, with one cube highlighted in red.Vossman; M. W. Toews; cmglee · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikimedia CommonsView source ↗

Prompt

Transform this image into Voxel Graphics, rebuilding visible forms from densely stacked colored cubes. Create chunky stepped contours, bumpy volumetric surfaces, small square facets, and simple directional lighting with dark gaps between blocks, using finer cubes for important identifying features. Keep the original subject and composition.

Paste it into LetzAI with your own image to apply the effect ↗

Identify

You see 3D landscapes made of tiny stacked cubes rather than flat surfaces. The terrain looks dense, chunky, and naturally bumpy instead of sharply geometric.

Principle

The image is built from volumetric pixels, which are 3D data points with color. A rendering engine¹ casts rays to draw these points on the screen.

Example

NovaLogic: Comanche: Maximum Overkill, 1992.

Try it out

Look at a Minecraft landscape and notice how curved hills are actually stepped grids of solid blocks.

Background

In the early 1990s, standard computers struggled to process complex 3D polygons quickly. Voxel graphics offered a clever shortcut for rendering outdoor environments. Instead of calculating flat geometric shapes, programmers used heightmaps². These maps told the computer how high to stack colored dots at any specific coordinate. The game engine³ then traced lines across the screen to quickly draw these points. This created incredibly detailed, rolling terrain that looked much more realistic than early polygon graphics. However, animating moving objects with voxels proved too heavy for computer memory, limiting its use.

Distinction

Unlike polygons, which form empty mathematical shells, voxels represent solid volume in 3D space. Think of polygons as origami and voxels as Lego bricks.

Aftermath

It teaches that representing solid volume can create rich textures that flat surfaces simply cannot achieve.

Further examples · 7 images

02 AI illustration: Verdant Valley Rendered via Volumetric PixelsA lush green valley and winding river are rendered through an array of distinct volumetric points. The landscape's organic curves are approximated by the stepping of uniform cubes, illustrating the chunky aesthetic of early voxel engines.Illustration generated for the Atlas (AI)

03 AI illustration: Arid Canyon Constructed from Voxel CubesA desert canyon shows towering rock formations built from thousands of individual brown and orange blocks. The image demonstrates how complex geological features are constructed from a 3D grid of data points.Illustration generated for the Atlas (AI)

04 AI illustration: Voxelized Coastal Cliffs and Ocean ShoreThis coastal scene depicts a forested cliffside meeting the ocean, where every tree and wave is defined by stacked cubic volumes. The jagged edges of the shoreline highlight the granular nature of voxel-based terrain generation.Illustration generated for the Atlas (AI)

05 AI illustration: Mountain Range in a Volumetric EnvironmentSnow-covered peaks are represented as a dense collection of white and grey prisms against a blue sky. The visual depth is achieved through a ray-casting method that draws each 3D pixel to the screen display.Illustration generated for the Atlas (AI)

06 AI illustration: Craters Formed by Volumetric Grid SubtractionCircular craters in a flat plain are formed by the absence of cubic units in a structured 3D grid. The resulting terrain appears naturally bumpy and textured rather than perfectly smooth or geometric.Illustration generated for the Atlas (AI)

07 AI illustration: Chunky River Landscape in Voxel GraphicsA wide river winds through forested hills, all composed of millions of tiny, color-coded 3D blocks. This illustrates the dense and heavy look characteristic of landscapes built entirely from volumetric data.Illustration generated for the Atlas (AI)

Question

Why did voxel graphics mostly disappear in the late 1990s?

Show possible answer +

Dedicated 3D graphics cards were invented to process polygons incredibly fast. These cards could not accelerate voxels, making polygons the new standard.