Software with 3D Model Export

Blender is the free 3D suite, and it turns up constantly in low-spec work: modelling and texturing low-poly assets, rendering 3D scenes down to a pixel-art sprite sheet, and building the turnarounds that hand-pixelled animation is traced from. Its add-on ecosystem covers most of the rest.

picoCAD 2 lets you make small low-poly models out of a handful of shapes and texture them with a single 128x128 texture sheet in a deliberately constrained toolset. Textures can be painted live in the program using a basic pixel art editor.

It also allows you to create simple animations and can be used to make larger and more complex models than the original picoCAD.

You can export renders, models and sprite sheets directly from it.

Blockbench is a free and open source editor for low-poly models with pixel art textures. Models can be exported into standard 3D formats, to be shared, rendered, 3D-printed, or used in game engines or games line Minecraft. Modeling, UV mapping, texturing with pixel-art tools, rigging and animating, can all be done in the program.

Blockbench has a clean and beginner friendly interface, but also offers lots of customization and advanced features for experienced 3D artists. Plugins can extend the functionality of the program even further.

Novaboard runs in the browser and as a desktop app, with layers, animation and effects.

The most popular voxel editor: fast, small, and with a renderer good enough that most voxel art you see was rendered inside it.

Avoyd edits and renders voxel scenes with billions of voxels, with a custom smoothing algorithm and imports for Minecraft maps.

FileToVox converts things that are not voxel models into voxel models: meshes, point clouds, heightmaps, images and Minecraft schematics all become MagicaVoxel files. It runs from the command line, which makes it easy to put in a pipeline.

Kenney Shape builds chunky 2.5D icons and sprites by stacking flat shapes and giving them depth, rather than by modelling in 3D. It is a fast way to get a consistent set of game icons, and exports both flat images and models.

Particubes was a voxel editor and game platform for iPhone and iPad, later rebuilt as Cubzh. The studio behind it has since moved on to other products and the app is no longer available from its authors.

Qubicle has been developed since 2010 and is the editor of choice for many studios, with turnaround GIF export, model export, slice editing and a voxelizer.

If you are tired of wrestling with clunky pipelines just to get that crisp, nostalgic retro look for your 3D assets, SH Pixelation Studio is built for you. Whether you are crafting indie low-poly retro games, stylized animations, or unique pixel art, this studio gives you complete control over downsampling, color palettes, and surface texturing without destroying your source geometry.

🔥 Key Features & Capabilities

Load Your Model: No complicated file routing or deep directory searches. Simply load your GLTF, GLB, OBJ, FBX or Image directly into the studio workspace and watch them load instantly.

Dual-Viewport Workspaces: Inspect your models from multiple angles simultaneously using independently orbitable viewports and side-by-side or stacked layouts.

Advanced Pixel & Dither Engine: Dial in your exact pixel size, choose from classic dithering matrices (Bayer, Floyd-Steinberg, Atkinson, and more), and posterize colors on the fly.

Submesh Targeting: Isolate specific submeshes and turn off the texture or the model part itself so you can pixelate even more accurately!

Over 500+ Grounded Color Palettes: Instantly remap your model's tonal clusters using hand-curated palette libraries ranging from retro hardware systems to cyberpunk neon and military camo.

Surface Paint Layers: Layer carbon fiber, honeycomb, scanlines, or custom stencils directly onto your surfaces with adjustable opacity and blend modes.

Looking to try before you buy?
Check out the official Demo version available on itch.io page! While advanced features like bulk batch processing and uncompressed high-res outputs are locked to the full version, the demo lets you test the core pixelation engine on your own 3D models and images. Perfect for indie developers searching for a fast, reliable tool to generate retro pixel art, low-poly textures, and PSX-style aesthetic assets for Unity, Unreal, Godot, or custom game engines.

Surface Paint Layer

Making it easier to add details without having to leave the software!

You can simply upload your own image or apply the presets press STAMP and you'll see in real time how pixelation affects your new effect.

UI Colors

Make it yours!

UI colors that you can change making it feel easier for you to pixelate in your own vibe, with your own color!

Colors come in 6 variations and they are muted/soft to not feel like they'll blind you or take your attention too much.

Tone Map

Less reasons to leave and more reasons to stay!

Tone map has presets that make your life easier, why worry about how your model looks like due to swatches that feel darker/lighter than others when you can just adjust the tone map yourself!

Isolate & Hide

Struggling to understand how your model looks like inside a different part of the mesh? Maybe your texture is too bright and you want to make it less of an issue and that's where Isolation or Hiding of the texture comes in handy.

Since it's an easy-to-use 3D Canvas, isolation comes in handy because you can zoom/rotate and look exactly where you want to without seeing parts of the mesh blocking you!

Isolate & Hide parts as you please, this option was made to simplify your life instead of asking yourself "How do I know how my UV texture looks inside?!"

Swatches Blend Mode

Swatch Palettes usually come in lots of variations, you have medieval, gothic, nostalgia, anime and many many maaaaany more but the issue is that... usually your texture looks amazing already, right? You made it so of course it looks amazing.

Therefore, the process of adding a new palette of colors ONTO your model should feel almost as if it's upgrading your model instead of changing it completely . . . WHICH Is why Swatch Blend Mode exists, to simplify your life and beautify your already pixel perfect model.

Batch Import & Export and UI Updates.

Batch import and export is here! Now you can work on 5-10-20-30-100??? models at the same time and export all of them with folders and sub-folders. Upgrading your workflow with easy access, batch upload, download and save states that allow you to take a pause and come back later to continue on your work.

An open source editor made to be simple and easy to use, with slice editing and model export.

Sprytile is a Blender add-on for building low-poly scenes by painting with a tilesheet: pick a tile, draw on a grid in the 3D view, and it makes the geometry and maps the texture as you go. It suits the tile-textured look of early 3D games.

VoxEdit is a free voxel modeller and animator made by The Sandbox for building assets for their game, though the models and animations it produces are usable anywhere. It covers modelling, rigging and animation in one program.