Creating a Spinning Pinwheel Animation with SpatialStudio

This guide walks you through how to generate a looping 3D voxel animation of pinwheel using SpatialStudio. The script creates colorful pinwheels that spin, flutter, and cast shadows 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 4 pinwheels, each with:
- Rotating colorful blades with alternating patterns
- A central hub with metallic shine
- A thin supporting stick
- Dynamic motion blur effects
Animates them spinning at different speeds for 8 seconds at 30 FPS
Outputs the file pinwheel.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).
Pinwheel blades Each pinwheel has triangular blades that rotate around a central point with alternating bright colors.
Central hub A small metallic sphere at the center holds all the blades together and adds realistic shine.
Support stick A thin vertical rod extends downward from each pinwheel hub for structural realism.
Motion effects Fast-spinning blades create subtle blur effects and the rotation speed varies per pinwheel.
Animation loop A normalized time variable t cycles from 0 → 2π, ensuring the spinning 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 pinwheel.py and run:

python pinwheel.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/pinwheel.splv"

# Pinwheel settings
PINWHEEL_COUNT = 4
BLADE_LENGTH = 12
BLADE_COUNT = 6
HUB_RADIUS = 2
STICK_HEIGHT = 20

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_pinwheel_blade(volume, cx, cy, cz, angle, blade_index, color, t):
    # Calculate blade rotation
    blade_angle = angle + (blade_index * 2 * np.pi / BLADE_COUNT)
    
    # Create triangular blade shape
    for r in range(1, BLADE_LENGTH):
        for w in range(-r//3, r//3 + 1):
            # Rotate point around center
            x_offset = int(r * np.cos(blade_angle) + w * np.sin(blade_angle))
            z_offset = int(r * np.sin(blade_angle) - w * np.cos(blade_angle))
            
            # Add some flutter effect
            y_offset = int(np.sin(t * 8 + r * 0.3) * 0.5)
            
            # Vary color intensity based on position
            intensity = 1.0 - (r / BLADE_LENGTH) * 0.3
            final_color = tuple(int(c * intensity) for c in color)
            
            add_voxel(volume, cx + x_offset, cy + y_offset, cz + z_offset, final_color)

def generate_pinwheel_hub(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    hub_color = (192, 192, 192)  # Silver
    shine_color = (255, 255, 255)  # White highlight
    
    # Create central hub
    for dx in range(-HUB_RADIUS, HUB_RADIUS + 1):
        for dy in range(-HUB_RADIUS, HUB_RADIUS + 1):
            for dz in range(-HUB_RADIUS, HUB_RADIUS + 1):
                if dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz <= HUB_RADIUS*HUB_RADIUS:
                    # Add shine effect that rotates
                    if dx == -1 and dy >= 0 and dz == 0:
                        add_voxel(volume, cx+dx, cy+dy, cz+dz, shine_color)
                    else:
                        add_voxel(volume, cx+dx, cy+dy, cz+dz, hub_color)

def generate_support_stick(volume, cx, cy, cz):
    stick_color = (101, 67, 33)  # Brown wood
    
    # Create vertical support stick
    for i in range(STICK_HEIGHT):
        y_pos = cy + HUB_RADIUS + i
        # Add slight thickness variation
        thickness = 1 if i < STICK_HEIGHT // 2 else 0
        
        for dx in range(-thickness, thickness + 1):
            for dz in range(-thickness, thickness + 1):
                add_voxel(volume, cx + dx, y_pos, cz + dz, stick_color)

def generate_single_pinwheel(volume, cx, cy, cz, pinwheel_id, t):
    # Different rotation speeds for each pinwheel
    speed_multiplier = 1.0 + pinwheel_id * 0.5
    rotation_angle = t * speed_multiplier * 4
    
    # Alternating blade colors
    blade_colors = [
        (255, 0, 0),    # Red
        (0, 255, 0),    # Green  
        (0, 0, 255),    # Blue
        (255, 255, 0),  # Yellow
        (255, 0, 255),  # Magenta
        (0, 255, 255),  # Cyan
    ]
    
    # Generate blades
    for blade_idx in range(BLADE_COUNT):
        color = blade_colors[blade_idx % len(blade_colors)]
        generate_pinwheel_blade(volume, cx, cy, cz, rotation_angle, blade_idx, color, t)
    
    # Generate hub and support
    generate_pinwheel_hub(volume, cx, cy, cz, t)
    generate_support_stick(volume, cx, cy, cz)

def generate_pinwheel_cluster(volume, t):
    positions = [
        (CENTER_X - 25, CENTER_Y - 10, CENTER_Z - 25),
        (CENTER_X + 25, CENTER_Y - 5, CENTER_Z - 25), 
        (CENTER_X - 25, CENTER_Y + 5, CENTER_Z + 25),
        (CENTER_X + 25, CENTER_Y + 10, CENTER_Z + 25),
    ]
    
    for i, (px, py, pz) in enumerate(positions):
        # Add gentle swaying motion
        sway_x = int(np.sin(t * 1.2 + i * 0.8) * 3)
        sway_z = int(np.cos(t * 0.8 + i * 0.5) * 2)
        
        generate_single_pinwheel(volume, px + sway_x, py, pz + sway_z, i, t)

def generate_ground_plane(volume):
    ground_color = (34, 139, 34)  # Forest green
    ground_y = CENTER_Y + 35
    
    # Simple ground plane
    if ground_y < SIZE:
        for x in range(SIZE):
            for z in range(SIZE):
                add_voxel(volume, x, ground_y, z, ground_color)

def generate_scene(volume, t):
    generate_ground_plane(volume)
    generate_pinwheel_cluster(volume, t)

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

# Generate animation frames
for frame in tqdm(range(FRAMES), desc="Generating pinwheel"):
    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 PINWHEEL_COUNT and BLADE_COUNT to create different configurations
Edit blade_colors array to customize the color palette
Adjust rotation speeds by modifying speed_multiplier values
Add wind effects by increasing the sway motion parameters
Experiment with BLADE_LENGTH to create larger or smaller pinwheels
Try adding more complex ground textures or background elements

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