Create Animated Snow in Blender with Python and Publish to the Web

Generate a Animated Snow animation in Blender using the Blender Python API and display it in the browser with model viewer. In this screencast I show how to create a particle based snow emitter make white transparent PBR flakes add simple handle objects use the courtyard EXR from Blender 5.0 for HDR lighting export the scene as a GLB and embed it in a web page with model viewer. I also cover which HDR and GPU texture formats work best for the web and how to run the Blender script from the command line.

Blog article
https://ojambo.com/generate-snow-animation-with-blender-python-api-for-website

Files and script
animated_snow.py
/path/to/blender --background --python /path/to/animated_snow.py -- --output /path/to/output/animated_snow.glb

What you will learn

Create a plane emitter and particle system that instances a flake collection
Make a white transparent Principled BSDF material for flakes and handles
Use the courtyard EXR for world lighting in Blender 5.0
Bake or cache particles and export to GLB
Convert EXR HDR to KTX2 Basis for best browser performance
Embed the GLB with model viewer for playback and controls
How to run the script
Use Blender headless from the command line as shown above The double dash separates Blender arguments from script arguments Parse sys argv in the script to read the output path

Links
Blog article
https://ojambo.com/generate-snow-animation-with-blender-python-api-for-website

Learning Python book
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Python-Programming-eBook-Beginners-ebook/dp/B0D8BQ5X99

Mastering Blender Python API book
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Blender-Python-API-Programming-ebook/dp/B0FCCQKFFZ

Learning Python course
https://ojamboshop.com/product/learning-python

Contact for one on one tutorials
https://ojambo.com/contact

#Blender #Python #WebGL #modelviewer #glTF #HDR #EXR #KTX2 #snowanimation #3D