🎈 floating balloons

This guide walks you through how to generate a looping 3D voxel animation of balloons using SpatialStudio. The script creates colorful balloons that float, sway, and shine inside a cubic 3D space, then saves the animation to a .splv file.

What this script does

Creates a 3D scene of size 128×128×128
Spawns 8 balloons, each with:
- A round voxel body
- A swaying string
- White highlights to look glossy
Animates them floating in place for 8 seconds at 30 FPS
Outputs the file balloons.splv that you can play in your viewer

How it works (simplified)

Voxel volume Each frame is a 3D grid filled with RGBA values (SIZE × SIZE × SIZE × 4).
Balloon body Balloons are drawn as spheres with subtle sine-wave variations for texture.
String Each balloon gets a wavy brown string that swings naturally.
Highlights White voxels are added to the upper side of balloons to simulate light reflection.
Animation loop A normalized time variable t cycles from 0 → 2π, ensuring the motion loops smoothly.
Encoding Frames are passed into splv.Encoder, which writes them into the .splv video file.

Try it yourself

Install requirements first:

pip install spatialstudio numpy tqdm

Then copy this script into balloons.py and run:

python balloons.py

Full Script

import numpy as np
from spatialstudio import splv
from tqdm import tqdm

# Scene setup
SIZE, FPS, SECONDS = 128, 30, 8
FRAMES = FPS * SECONDS
CENTER_X = CENTER_Y = CENTER_Z = SIZE // 2
OUT_PATH = "../outputs/balloons.splv"

# Balloon settings
BALLOON_COUNT = 8
BALLOON_RADIUS = 8
STRING_LENGTH = 25

def add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, color):
    if 0 <= x < SIZE and 0 <= y < SIZE and 0 <= z < SIZE:
        volume[x, y, z, :3] = color
        volume[x, y, z, 3] = 255

def generate_balloon_body(volume, cx, cy, cz, color, size, t):
    for dx in range(-size, size+1):
        for dy in range(-size, size+1):
            for dz in range(-size, size+1):
                if np.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz) <= size:
                    surface = int(np.sin(dx*0.3 + dy*0.2 + dz*0.1 + t*0.5) * 2)
                    brightness = 1.0 + surface * 0.1
                    final_color = tuple(min(255, int(c * brightness)) for c in color)
                    add_voxel(volume, cx+dx, cy+dy, cz+dz, final_color)

def generate_string(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    string_color = (139, 69, 19)
    sway = np.sin(t * 2.0 + cx * 0.01) * 3
    for i in range(STRING_LENGTH):
        p = i / STRING_LENGTH
        x = cx + int(sway * p)
        y = cy - BALLOON_RADIUS - i
        z = cz + int(np.sin(t * 1.5 + i*0.2) * p)
        add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, string_color)

def generate_cluster(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    colors = [
        (255,0,0), (255,165,0), (255,255,0), (0,255,0),
        (0,0,255), (138,43,226), (255,20,147), (255,105,180),
    ]
    for i in range(BALLOON_COUNT):
        angle = (i / BALLOON_COUNT) * 2*np.pi
        radius = 15 + 8*np.sin(i * 0.5)
        fx = int(radius * np.cos(angle + t*0.3))
        fz = int(radius * np.sin(angle + t*0.2))
        fy = int(5 * np.sin(t*1.5 + i*0.4))
        bx, by, bz = cx+fx, cy+fy, cz+fz
        size = max(5, BALLOON_RADIUS + int(2*np.sin(t*0.8 + i*0.3)))
        color = colors[i % len(colors)]
        generate_balloon_body(volume, bx, by, bz, color, size, t)
        generate_string(volume, bx, by, bz, t)

def generate_highlights(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    for i in range(BALLOON_COUNT):
        angle = (i / BALLOON_COUNT) * 2*np.pi
        radius = 15 + 8*np.sin(i * 0.5)
        fx = int(radius * np.cos(angle + t*0.3))
        fz = int(radius * np.sin(angle + t*0.2))
        fy = int(5 * np.sin(t*1.5 + i*0.4))
        bx, by, bz = cx+fx, cy+fy, cz+fz
        for dx in range(-2, 3):
            for dy in range(-2, 3):
                for dz in range(-2, 3):
                    if dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz <= 4:
                        add_voxel(volume, bx-3+dx, by+3+dy, bz-2+dz, (255,255,255))

def generate_scene(volume, t):
    generate_cluster(volume, CENTER_X, CENTER_Y, CENTER_Z, t)
    generate_highlights(volume, CENTER_X, CENTER_Y, CENTER_Z, t)

enc = splv.Encoder(SIZE, SIZE, SIZE, framerate=FPS, outputPath=OUT_PATH, motionVectors="off")

for frame in tqdm(range(FRAMES), desc="Generating balloons"):
    volume = np.zeros((SIZE, SIZE, SIZE, 4), dtype=np.uint8)
    t = (frame / FRAMES) * 2*np.pi
    generate_scene(volume, t)
    enc.encode(splv.Frame(volume, lrAxis="x", udAxis="y", fbAxis="z"))

enc.finish()
print(f"Created {OUT_PATH}")

Next steps

Change BALLOON_COUNT to spawn more balloons.
Edit colors for a new palette.
Make balloons rise slowly by adding + int(t*5) to the Y position.

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