Recs.
Updated
MagicaVoxel is a free lightweight 8-bit voxel art editor and interactive path tracing renderer [win/mac].
Specs
Pros
Pro Excellent rendering mode
Raytracing, GI, AO, and configurable PBR, all GPU accelerated.
Pro Very easy to use
MagicaVoxel has sane defaults and an intuitive interface. You add or remove voxels with the left-click and rotate the camera with the right-click. The interface does not overwhelm or get in the way, yet it keeps all functionality within easy reach.
Very helpful for beginners is the fact that hovering with the mouse over a tool shows hints on how to use the tool. The hints can be found at the bottom of the interface.
Pro Actively developed
MagicaVoxel is constantly being developed with new releases bringing bug fixes and new features being released on a constant basis.
Cons
Con Small sizes
The maximum dimensions for one voxel is 126 x 126 x 126 (since May 2020 it is 256 x 256 x 256). To put this into perspective, the kvx format (an older format by ken silverman used in games like blood, shadow warrior, and ZDooM-based ports) has maximum dimensions of 256x256x255. while newer versions of magicavoxel include a world editor (in which multiple voxels can be arranged into a set), each voxel is exported separately.
Con Hard to change camera
The camera options don't have 2d view. Plus, the pers camera option is too hard to use when creating rooms.
Con Does not support intelligent palette merging when importing a model as a brush
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Con Unsuitable for game-dev
Only usable format is poorly supported .obj; besides that, the exported models have vertices for each color on, making the vertex count very high and FPS of final game very low.
Con Bad UVW mapping for OBJ export
This is fixed now, it's all triangulate and since each faces are grouped together, it's so easy to unwrap
Con Not trustworthy
Antivirus programs (like McAfee) say that it's a dangerous download when trying to install it. You should never trust a free download because it probably comes with a virus or two.