Creating a 3D Voxel Butterfly Animation

This guide walks you through how to generate a looping 3D voxel animation of butterflies using SpatialStudio. The script creates graceful butterflies that flutter their wings and dance through 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 6 butterflies, each with:
- Colorful animated wings that flap realistically
- A detailed segmented body
- Antennae that sway gently
- Wing patterns with spots and gradients
Animates them flying in figure-8 patterns for 10 seconds at 30 FPS
Outputs the file butterfly.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).
Wing animation Wings are drawn as elliptical shapes that rotate up and down with realistic flapping motion using sine waves.
Body structure Each butterfly gets a segmented body with varying thickness and natural color transitions.
Flight patterns Butterflies follow figure-8 paths at different heights and speeds for natural-looking movement.
Wing details Colorful patterns, spots, and gradients are procedurally generated on each wing surface.
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 butterfly.py and run:

python butterfly.py

Full Script

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

# Scene setup
SIZE, FPS, SECONDS = 128, 30, 10
FRAMES = FPS * SECONDS
CENTER_X = CENTER_Y = CENTER_Z = SIZE // 2
OUT_PATH = "../outputs/butterfly.splv"

# Butterfly settings
BUTTERFLY_COUNT = 6
WING_SIZE = 12
BODY_LENGTH = 16

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_wing(volume, cx, cy, cz, wing_angle, is_left, color, t):
    # Wing flapping motion
    flap_angle = np.sin(t * 8.0) * 0.8
    wing_rotation = wing_angle + flap_angle
    
    # Wing shape parameters
    wing_width = WING_SIZE
    wing_height = int(WING_SIZE * 0.8)
    
    for dx in range(-wing_width, wing_width+1):
        for dy in range(-wing_height, wing_height+1):
            # Create wing shape (elliptical)
            distance = np.sqrt((dx/wing_width)**2 + (dy/wing_height)**2)
            if distance <= 1.0:
                # Apply wing rotation
                if is_left:
                    rx = int(dx * np.cos(wing_rotation) - dy * np.sin(wing_rotation))
                    ry = int(dx * np.sin(wing_rotation) + dy * np.cos(wing_rotation))
                else:
                    rx = int(dx * np.cos(-wing_rotation) - dy * np.sin(-wing_rotation))
                    ry = int(dx * np.sin(-wing_rotation) + dy * np.cos(-wing_rotation))
                
                # Add wing patterns
                pattern_factor = np.sin(dx * 0.3) * np.cos(dy * 0.4) * 0.3 + 0.7
                wing_color = tuple(int(c * pattern_factor) for c in color)
                
                # Add spots
                spot_dist = np.sqrt((dx - wing_width//3)**2 + (dy - wing_height//3)**2)
                if spot_dist < 3:
                    wing_color = (20, 20, 20)  # Dark spots
                
                add_voxel(volume, cx + rx, cy + ry, cz, wing_color)

def generate_body(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    body_color = (101, 67, 33)  # Brown body
    head_color = (139, 90, 43)   # Lighter brown head
    
    # Generate segmented body
    for i in range(BODY_LENGTH):
        y_pos = cy - BODY_LENGTH//2 + i
        segment_width = 2 if i < 3 or i > BODY_LENGTH-4 else 3  # Thinner at ends
        
        for dx in range(-segment_width, segment_width+1):
            for dz in range(-1, 2):
                if dx*dx + dz*dz <= segment_width*segment_width:
                    # Head is lighter
                    color = head_color if i < 3 else body_color
                    add_voxel(volume, cx + dx, y_pos, cz + dz, color)

def generate_antennae(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    antenna_color = (80, 50, 20)
    sway = np.sin(t * 1.5) * 2
    
    # Left antenna
    for i in range(6):
        x = cx - 2 + int(sway * (i/6))
        y = cy - BODY_LENGTH//2 - i
        z = cz + int(np.sin(t + i * 0.3))
        add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, antenna_color)
    
    # Right antenna
    for i in range(6):
        x = cx + 2 + int(sway * (i/6))
        y = cy - BODY_LENGTH//2 - i
        z = cz + int(np.sin(t + i * 0.3))
        add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, antenna_color)

def generate_butterfly(volume, bx, by, bz, color, t, phase_offset):
    adjusted_t = t + phase_offset
    
    # Generate body
    generate_body(volume, bx, by, bz, adjusted_t)
    
    # Generate antennae
    generate_antennae(volume, bx, by, bz, adjusted_t)
    
    # Generate wings
    wing_offset = 8
    generate_wing(volume, bx - wing_offset, by, bz, 0.2, True, color, adjusted_t)   # Left wing
    generate_wing(volume, bx + wing_offset, by, bz, -0.2, False, color, adjusted_t) # Right wing

def generate_butterfly_swarm(volume, t):
    colors = [
        (255, 140, 0),    # Orange
        (255, 20, 147),   # Deep pink
        (138, 43, 226),   # Blue violet
        (50, 205, 50),    # Lime green
        (255, 215, 0),    # Gold
        (220, 20, 60),    # Crimson
    ]
    
    for i in range(BUTTERFLY_COUNT):
        # Figure-8 flight pattern
        angle = t * 1.2 + i * (2*np.pi / BUTTERFLY_COUNT)
        figure8_x = np.sin(angle) * 25
        figure8_y = np.sin(angle * 2) * 15
        figure8_z = np.cos(angle * 0.8) * 20
        
        # Height variation
        height_offset = i * 8 - 20
        
        bx = int(CENTER_X + figure8_x)
        by = int(CENTER_Y + figure8_y + height_offset)
        bz = int(CENTER_Z + figure8_z)
        
        color = colors[i % len(colors)]
        phase_offset = i * 0.5  # Stagger wing flapping
        
        generate_butterfly(volume, bx, by, bz, color, t, phase_offset)

def generate_scene(volume, t):
    generate_butterfly_swarm(volume, t)

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

for frame in tqdm(range(FRAMES), desc="Generating butterflies"):
    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 BUTTERFLY_COUNT to spawn more butterflies.
Edit colors array for different wing colors.
Modify the flight pattern by changing the figure-8 equations.
Adjust WING_SIZE and BODY_LENGTH for different butterfly sizes.
Add more complex wing patterns by modifying the generate_wing function.
Create seasonal variations by changing color palettes.

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