Holodeck

Holodeck is a CLI tool and webapp that renders Blender animations as slide decks that can be viewed in a web-browser.

Because the Holodeck webapp displays pre-rendered frames, the resulting slide deck presentation allows slide decks that are higher fidelity than what can be achieved with a tool like google slides, in a way that appears to be realtime (but isn't).

Live demo: jbellenger.github.io/holodeck

Holodeck uses Blender frame markers (default blender key-binding: M) as pause points. Pressing space in the holodeck webapp will animate (using the frame rate configured in blender) until the next pause point.

To turn a .blend file into something you can upload to a static host, run:

holodeck build demo/demo.blend dist/demo

That creates dist/demo, which you can upload to GitHub Pages, S3, or any other static host. To preview the same directory locally, run:

holodeck serve dist/demo

That command opens the local player URL in your default browser. Use --no-open to skip that behavior.

Configuring a Blend File

Holodeck reads the active scene's frame range, fps, and timeline markers from Blender.

• frame_start and frame_end define the rendered frame span.
• Timeline markers define presentation boundaries. Put a marker on the frame where a section should begin.
• In the browser player, left and right navigation jumps between marker frames, and playback stops when it reaches the next marker or the end of the animation.
• Marker names are ignored. Only their frame numbers matter.
• Marker frame numbers are interpreted relative to the scene's start frame, so a marker on the first rendered frame becomes marker 0 in the exported manifest.
• Markers outside the rendered frame range are ignored.

Project Layout

• holodeck/: Python package and CLI entrypoint
• holodeck/core/: testable logic for Blender invocation, manifest generation, and serving
• holodeck/resources/: browser player assets bundled with the package and used for local exports, static hosting, and distributable builds
• demo/: canonical demo source files, including demo.blend and tracked rendered frames
• docs/: generated local demo output built from demo/
• tests/: pytest coverage for core logic and CLI behavior
• tests/fixtures/blends/: Blender fixtures for render override integration tests

Quick Start

1. Create the virtual environment and install dependencies:

make setup

2. Build the standalone holodeck executable:

make build

That produces both dist/holodeck (PyInstaller) and dist/holodeck.pex (PEX).

3. Build an export from a .blend file:

./dist/holodeck build demo/demo.blend dist/demo

4. Serve it locally:

./dist/holodeck serve dist/demo

CLI Commands

holodeck build demo/demo.blend dist/demo
holodeck refresh demo/demo.blend dist/demo
holodeck serve dist/demo --port 8000
holodeck serve dist/demo --no-open

• build: render a .blend file into a static directory you can upload to a site
• refresh: rebuild manifest.json and reinstall player assets for an existing render output
• serve: preview an existing Holodeck directory locally

Standalone Executables

You can build both standalone executables:

make build

That produces:

• dist/holodeck: a PyInstaller single-file binary
• dist/holodeck.pex: a PEX executable built from the same CLI entrypoint

You can also build them individually:

make build-pyinstaller
make build-pex

• The file is movable on the same machine.
• The executable bundles Python, the player assets, and the Blender helper scripts.
• It is distributable to other machines of the same OS and CPU architecture with Blender available on PATH.
• It is not a cross-platform binary. Build it separately on macOS, Linux, and Windows if you need all three.

Common Commands

• make setup: create holodeck-venv/ and install the package plus pytest
• make test: run the full test suite
• make test-one TEST=test_add_frame: run a focused test
• make build: produce both dist/holodeck and dist/holodeck.pex
• make build-pyinstaller: produce the standalone dist/holodeck binary with PyInstaller
• make build-pex: produce the standalone dist/holodeck.pex executable with PEX
• make build-demo: rebuild docs/ from demo/demo.blend and demo/render/
• make regen-blend-fixtures: rebuild the tracked Blender test fixtures
• make serve-demo: serve docs/ on port 8000 using dist/holodeck
• make clean: remove the virtualenv and Python cache files

holodeck/resources/ is the canonical source for the browser player. Local source-tree exports, packaged builds, and distributable binaries all read from the same asset directory. GitHub Pages publishes a CI-generated artifact assembled from demo/render/ plus holodeck refresh instead of serving checked-in docs/ files.