3D Voxel Animation Tutorial: Prismatic Light Show

This guide walks you through how to generate a looping 3D voxel animation of a crystal prism using SpatialStudio. The script creates a rotating glass prism that refracts light into rainbow beams 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
Generates a crystal prism with:
- Transparent triangular glass structure
- Reflective surfaces with highlights
- Rainbow light beams refracting through it
- Particle sparkles around the prism
Animates smooth rotation and light dispersion for 8 seconds at 30 FPS
Outputs the file prism.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).
Prism geometry The prism is drawn as a triangular structure using geometric calculations for clean edges and faces.
Light refraction White light enters the prism and splits into colored beams that spread outward at different angles.
Surface effects Semi-transparent glass material with bright white highlights to simulate crystal reflections.
Animation loop A normalized time variable t cycles from 0 → 2π, rotating the prism and shifting the light patterns 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 prism.py and run:

python prism.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/prism.splv"

# Prism settings
PRISM_HEIGHT = 30
PRISM_WIDTH = 20
BEAM_LENGTH = 40

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

def generate_prism_body(volume, cx, cy, cz, rotation):
    glass_color = (200, 230, 255)
    cos_r, sin_r = np.cos(rotation), np.sin(rotation)
    
    for y in range(-PRISM_HEIGHT//2, PRISM_HEIGHT//2):
        for x in range(-PRISM_WIDTH, PRISM_WIDTH):
            for z in range(-PRISM_WIDTH, PRISM_WIDTH):
                # Rotate coordinates
                rx = x * cos_r - z * sin_r
                rz = x * sin_r + z * cos_r
                
                # Triangular prism shape
                if (abs(rx) <= PRISM_WIDTH//2 and 
                    abs(rz) <= PRISM_WIDTH//2 and
                    rx + rz >= -PRISM_WIDTH//2 and
                    rx - rz <= PRISM_WIDTH//2 and
                    -rx + rz <= PRISM_WIDTH//2):
                    
                    # Edge detection for glass effect
                    edge_dist = min(PRISM_WIDTH//2 - abs(rx), PRISM_WIDTH//2 - abs(rz))
                    if edge_dist <= 2:
                        brightness = 1.2 + 0.3 * np.sin(y * 0.2 + rotation)
                        final_color = tuple(min(255, int(c * brightness)) for c in glass_color)
                        add_voxel(volume, cx + int(rx), cy + y, cz + int(rz), final_color, 180)

def generate_light_beams(volume, cx, cy, cz, rotation, t):
    # Rainbow colors for refracted light
    beam_colors = [
        (255, 0, 0),    # Red
        (255, 127, 0),  # Orange
        (255, 255, 0),  # Yellow
        (0, 255, 0),    # Green
        (0, 0, 255),    # Blue
        (75, 0, 130),   # Indigo
        (148, 0, 211),  # Violet
    ]
    
    for i, color in enumerate(beam_colors):
        angle_offset = (i / len(beam_colors)) * np.pi * 0.5
        beam_angle = rotation + angle_offset + np.sin(t * 2.0) * 0.2
        
        for length in range(BEAM_LENGTH):
            intensity = max(0, 1.0 - length / BEAM_LENGTH)
            if intensity > 0.1:
                spread = int(length * 0.15)
                bx = cx + int(length * np.cos(beam_angle))
                bz = cz + int(length * np.sin(beam_angle))
                by = cy + int(np.sin(length * 0.1 + t * 3.0) * 3)
                
                # Create beam with slight spread
                for dx in range(-spread, spread + 1):
                    for dz in range(-spread, spread + 1):
                        if dx*dx + dz*dz <= spread*spread:
                            final_color = tuple(int(c * intensity) for c in color)
                            alpha = int(intensity * 150)
                            add_voxel(volume, bx + dx, by, bz + dz, final_color, alpha)

def generate_sparkles(volume, cx, cy, cz, t):
    sparkle_color = (255, 255, 255)
    
    for i in range(20):
        # Pseudo-random sparkle positions based on time and index
        angle = (i * 2.7 + t * 1.5) % (2 * np.pi)
        radius = 25 + 10 * np.sin(i * 0.8 + t * 2.0)
        height = 15 * np.sin(i * 1.2 + t * 1.8)
        
        sx = cx + int(radius * np.cos(angle))
        sy = cy + int(height)
        sz = cz + int(radius * np.sin(angle))
        
        # Twinkling effect
        brightness = 0.5 + 0.5 * np.sin(t * 4.0 + i * 0.5)
        if brightness > 0.7:
            final_color = tuple(int(c * brightness) for c in sparkle_color)
            add_voxel(volume, sx, sy, sz, final_color)
            
            # Add small cross pattern for sparkle effect
            for dx, dz in [(1,0), (-1,0), (0,1), (0,-1)]:
                add_voxel(volume, sx + dx, sy, sz + dz, final_color, 180)

def generate_prism_highlights(volume, cx, cy, cz, rotation):
    highlight_color = (255, 255, 255)
    cos_r, sin_r = np.cos(rotation), np.sin(rotation)
    
    # Add bright highlights to prism edges
    for y in range(-PRISM_HEIGHT//2, PRISM_HEIGHT//2, 3):
        for edge in range(3):
            angle = edge * (2*np.pi/3) + rotation
            hx = cx + int(PRISM_WIDTH//2 * np.cos(angle))
            hz = cz + int(PRISM_WIDTH//2 * np.sin(angle))
            add_voxel(volume, hx, cy + y, hz, highlight_color)

def generate_scene(volume, t):
    rotation = t * 0.5  # Slow rotation
    
    generate_prism_body(volume, CENTER_X, CENTER_Y, CENTER_Z, rotation)
    generate_light_beams(volume, CENTER_X, CENTER_Y, CENTER_Z, rotation, t)
    generate_prism_highlights(volume, CENTER_X, CENTER_Y, CENTER_Z, rotation)
    generate_sparkles(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 prism"):
    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

Adjust PRISM_HEIGHT and PRISM_WIDTH to change the crystal size.
Modify beam_colors to create different light spectrums.
Increase BEAM_LENGTH for longer light rays.
Add more sparkles by changing the range in generate_sparkles().
Try different rotation speeds by modifying the rotation = t * 0.5 multiplier.

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