Sprite Mask

[lazarusgreen]

Detailed description of your suggestion

With Blockbench being a low poly modeling program, I believe sprite masks and billboarding would be very welcome additions.

Billboarding is making a single face (usually with a 2D sprite on it) always face the camera.
Think: Minecraft's particles. This feature is essential to certain styles of low poly modeling, for example those seeking to mimic N64 or Sega Saturn graphics.

Sprite masks in the context of low poly are making specific faces or an entire mesh display one looping texture.
Think: Minecraft's End portal effect, but with only one layer (though the ability to make multi-layered sprite masks would be great, if it's at all possible to implement).

[JannisX11]

Progress on billboards is tracked here: https://github.com/users/JannisX11/projects/1/views/2?pane=issue&itemId=64542853

To clarify regarding sprite masks: The only references for sprite masks were in 2D, where a mask could make one object visible through another object that's usually in front of it. Do you have an example of how this would work in 3D? Would it make a specific element visible through another, or a generic background like in the Minecraft end portal?

[lazarusgreen]

It's good to know billboards are being worked on, thank you!

As for how sprite masks would work in 3D, the background variant is what I'm thinking of. You would have the ability to upload a separate image to use as a "background" texture, as you described it, and you would then be able to set faces (or maybe even individual pixels of a face?) on your model to display that texture, appearing the same from all angles, flat and unmoving (unless it's animated).
A non-Minecraft example of it in action is how Doom 1 and 2 do their skyboxes (it's just a mask applied to the ceiling and sometimes walls of a room). If made possible to apply to Blockbench models it would allow for some rather impressive visuals.

I imagine entire objects rather than just textures being obscured/revealed by masks would also be doable and quite neat, but it's not something I've personally ever seen frequently used in low poly, to a point where I cannot even think of any examples of it.

[JannisX11]

I'm not sure it fits into Blockbench. It's a modeling program first and foremost, and masks sound more like an advanced rendering technique, which is not really what the program is designed around.