creating stone wall animation

This guide walks you through how to generate a looping 3D voxel animation of a stone wall using SpatialStudio. The script creates a weathered stone wall with realistic textures, subtle movements, and atmospheric effects 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
Builds a stone wall with:
- Individual stone blocks with varied textures
- Realistic weathering and color variations
- Subtle mortar between stones
- Gentle swaying motion to simulate wind
Animates subtle movements for 8 seconds at 30 FPS
Outputs the file stone_wall.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).
Stone blocks Individual stones are drawn as rounded rectangles with noise-based texture variations for realism.
Mortar joints Gray mortar fills the gaps between stones, creating authentic masonry appearance.
Texture variation Each stone gets unique color variations and surface roughness using procedural noise.
Animation loop A normalized time variable t cycles from 0 → 2π, creating gentle swaying and texture shifts.
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 stone_wall.py and run:

python stone_wall.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/stone_wall.splv"

# Wall settings
WALL_WIDTH = 80
WALL_HEIGHT = 60
WALL_DEPTH = 12
STONE_HEIGHT = 8
STONE_WIDTH_MIN = 12
STONE_WIDTH_MAX = 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 noise_3d(x, y, z, scale=0.1):
    """Simple 3D noise function for texture variation"""
    return (np.sin(x * scale) * np.cos(y * scale) * np.sin(z * scale) + 1) / 2

def generate_stone_block(volume, start_x, start_y, start_z, width, height, depth, stone_id, t):
    """Generate a single stone block with texture"""
    base_colors = [
        (120, 120, 110),  # Gray stone
        (130, 125, 115),  # Light gray
        (110, 105, 95),   # Dark gray
        (125, 115, 100),  # Brownish gray
        (115, 110, 105),  # Medium gray
    ]
    
    base_color = base_colors[stone_id % len(base_colors)]
    
    # Add gentle movement
    sway_x = int(np.sin(t * 0.5 + stone_id * 0.3) * 0.5)
    sway_z = int(np.cos(t * 0.7 + stone_id * 0.2) * 0.3)
    
    for dx in range(width):
        for dy in range(height):
            for dz in range(depth):
                x = start_x + dx + sway_x
                y = start_y + dy
                z = start_z + dz + sway_z
                
                # Create rounded edges
                edge_factor = 1.0
                if dx == 0 or dx == width-1 or dy == 0 or dy == height-1:
                    edge_factor = 0.9
                if dz == 0 or dz == depth-1:
                    edge_factor *= 0.95
                
                # Add texture noise
                noise_val = noise_3d(x + stone_id*10, y, z + t*2, 0.3)
                texture_factor = 0.8 + 0.4 * noise_val
                
                # Combine factors
                final_factor = edge_factor * texture_factor
                final_color = tuple(int(c * final_factor) for c in base_color)
                
                add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, final_color)

def generate_mortar(volume, start_x, start_y, start_z, width, height, depth):
    """Generate mortar between stones"""
    mortar_color = (90, 85, 80)
    
    for dx in range(width):
        for dy in range(height):
            for dz in range(depth):
                x = start_x + dx
                y = start_y + dy
                z = start_z + dz
                add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, mortar_color)

def generate_wall_pattern(volume, t):
    """Generate the complete stone wall with mortar"""
    wall_start_x = CENTER_X - WALL_WIDTH // 2
    wall_start_y = CENTER_Y - WALL_HEIGHT // 2
    wall_start_z = CENTER_Z - WALL_DEPTH // 2
    
    stone_id = 0
    current_y = wall_start_y
    
    # Build wall row by row
    while current_y < wall_start_y + WALL_HEIGHT:
        current_x = wall_start_x
        row_height = min(STONE_HEIGHT, wall_start_y + WALL_HEIGHT - current_y)
        
        # Offset every other row for realistic brick pattern
        if (current_y - wall_start_y) // STONE_HEIGHT % 2 == 1:
            current_x += STONE_WIDTH_MIN // 2
        
        while current_x < wall_start_x + WALL_WIDTH:
            # Random stone width
            stone_width = STONE_WIDTH_MIN + (stone_id * 7) % (STONE_WIDTH_MAX - STONE_WIDTH_MIN)
            stone_width = min(stone_width, wall_start_x + WALL_WIDTH - current_x - 2)
            
            if stone_width < 6:  # Skip very small stones
                break
                
            # Generate mortar first (1 voxel thick)
            if current_x > wall_start_x:
                generate_mortar(volume, current_x, current_y, wall_start_z, 
                              1, row_height, WALL_DEPTH)
                current_x += 1
                
            if current_y > wall_start_y:
                generate_mortar(volume, current_x, current_y, wall_start_z, 
                              stone_width, 1, WALL_DEPTH)
            
            # Generate stone block
            stone_y = current_y + (1 if current_y > wall_start_y else 0)
            stone_height = row_height - (1 if current_y > wall_start_y else 0)
            
            generate_stone_block(volume, current_x, stone_y, wall_start_z + 1, 
                               stone_width, stone_height, WALL_DEPTH - 2, stone_id, t)
            
            current_x += stone_width
            stone_id += 1
        
        current_y += row_height

def add_atmospheric_effects(volume, t):
    """Add subtle atmospheric effects like dust particles"""
    dust_color = (200, 195, 190)
    
    for i in range(20):  # Add some floating dust particles
        x = int(CENTER_X + 30 * np.sin(t * 0.3 + i * 0.5))
        y = int(CENTER_Y + 20 * np.cos(t * 0.4 + i * 0.3) + i * 2)
        z = int(CENTER_Z + 15 * np.sin(t * 0.2 + i * 0.7))
        
        if abs(y - CENTER_Y) < 25:  # Keep dust near wall level
            add_voxel(volume, x, y, z, dust_color)

def generate_scene(volume, t):
    """Generate the complete stone wall scene"""
    generate_wall_pattern(volume, t)
    add_atmospheric_effects(volume, t)

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

# Generate frames
for frame in tqdm(range(FRAMES), desc="Building stone wall"):
    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 WALL_WIDTH and WALL_HEIGHT to change wall dimensions.
Modify base_colors to create walls with different stone types.
Increase STONE_WIDTH_MAX for larger, more irregular stones.
Add ivy or moss by introducing green voxels with organic growth patterns.
Create a crumbling effect by randomly removing some stone voxels over time.

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