What the Export Settings Actually Do

Foxel’s Export Settings control how mesh geometry, texture maps, material data, animation data, and generated output files are written during export.

This tutorial explains the most important settings in practical terms, so you can choose the right export behavior without guessing.

Why This Matters

The Export Settings dialog contains many options, but they are easier to understand when you treat them as groups of related controls.

A useful way to think about the dialog is:

• Geometry settings change the exported mesh.
• Surface-data settings define how color and material data are stored.
• Texture-output settings control which texture files are generated.
• Transform settings define how object transforms are baked.
• Animation settings define how motion is written to the export.

Geometry-Related Settings

These settings affect the exported mesh itself.

Optimize

Optimize reduces file size and can improve performance by optimizing the exported mesh.

Use this for most engine or renderer exports, especially when you want cleaner output with fewer unnecessary polygons.

Watertight

Watertight attempts to generate closed mesh geometry without holes or gaps.

This is useful when the exported mesh needs to behave like a solid object, for example for certain rendering, printing, simulation, or mesh-processing workflows.

Exclude Cap

Exclude Cap omits outer cap geometry on selected sides of the voxel grid.

This can be configured per side:

• Left
• Right
• Top
• Bottom
• Front
• Back

For example, if Exclude Bottom is enabled, bottom-facing geometry is omitted only where it lies on the outer bottom boundary of the voxel grid.

Use this when a side of the exported object will never be visible, or when you want to connect exported chunks without creating unnecessary internal faces.

Generate LOD Files

Generate LOD Files exports additional meshes for lower levels of detail.

Use this when the target workflow supports separate LOD meshes and you want distant objects to use simpler geometry.

Surface-Data Settings

These settings control where color and material information is stored.

Encoding

Encoding defines how surface data is stored in the exported result.

Foxel can write surface data in different ways depending on whether your target workflow expects texture maps or simpler vertex color data.

Texture

Texture stores color and material data in texture maps.

Use this when exporting to game engines, renderers, or other workflows that expect image-based material data.

This is the preferred choice when you need PBR information such as:

• Base color
• Alpha
• Metallic
• Roughness
• Emissive data

Vertex Color

Vertex Color stores color directly on the mesh vertices.

PBR material data is not included.

Use this for simpler workflows where you only need color and do not need texture-based metallic, roughness, alpha, or emissive data.

Texture Set Layout

Texture Set Layout defines how generated texture maps are encoded and packed.

Different engines and renderers expect different texture layouts. This setting controls where channels such as color, alpha, metallic, roughness, and emissive are written.

For example, one layout may write roughness into a separate grayscale map, while another layout may pack multiple material properties into different channels of the same texture.

Use this setting to match the texture format expected by your target application.

Generate PBR Maps

Generate PBR Maps exports additional maps for material properties such as metallic, roughness, and emissive data.

The exact maps and channel layout depend on the selected Texture Set Layout.

Use this when your exported asset should preserve Foxel’s material appearance in a PBR-capable engine or renderer.

Texture-Output Settings

These settings affect the generated texture files.

Generate Texture Atlas

Generate Texture Atlas combines texture data into a texture atlas.

This keeps exported texture data organized and reduces the number of separate texture files needed by the exported asset.

Exclude Empty Maps

Exclude Empty Maps skips maps that do not contain relevant data.

For example, if an asset does not use emissive materials, the emissive map may not need to be written.

Use this to keep export folders cleaner and avoid unnecessary files.

Edge Padding

Edge Padding adds padding around texture islands to reduce texture bleeding.

Texture bleeding can appear when pixels from outside a UV island become visible because of filtering or mipmapping in the target engine.

Increasing padding can help exported textures look cleaner, especially at smaller texture sizes or when mipmaps are used.

Postfixes

Postfixes define the text appended to generated filenames.

Transform-Related Settings

These settings affect how object transforms are baked into the export.

Bake Frozen Rotation/Scaling

Bake Frozen Rotation/Scaling bakes frozen rotation and scaling into the exported mesh.

Use this when you want the exported mesh data to include those transformations directly instead of relying on transform values in the target application.

Bake Pivot

Bake Pivot bakes the object pivot into the exported mesh.

Use this when the exported object needs to keep a specific pivot position for placement, rotation, or animation in another application.

Animation-Related Settings

These settings affect animation export.

Export Keyframes

Export Keyframes includes keyframe animation data in the export.

Use this when the target format and target application support animation and you want to preserve animated object movement.

Bake Key Every

Bake Key Every defines the interval used when baking animation keys.

A smaller interval creates more baked keys and can preserve motion more accurately.

A larger interval creates fewer keys and can make the exported animation lighter, but may lose some detail.

What To Remember

Foxel’s Export Settings are easiest to understand by category:

• Optimize, Watertight, Exclude Cap, and Generate LOD Files affect the exported mesh.
• Encoding, Texture Set Layout, and Generate PBR Maps affect surface-data export.
• Generate Texture Atlas, Exclude Empty Maps, and Edge Padding affect texture outputs.
• Bake Frozen Rotation/Scaling and Bake Pivot affect transforms.
• Export Keyframes and Bake Key Every affect animation export.