Software with 3D Model Export

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.