Download the ZIP file, extract it somewhere and open up the HappyBirthdayV1.0.blend file in Blender, we recommend using version Blender 4.0.1 or higher.

When you open the file - all you need to do is press the small play icon ▷ at the top - then in the 3D Viewport there will be a new Panel called "3D Names" - this contains all of the setup scripts to make this files effect work.

As you can see above this is the new Panel that does all the hard work for us!

Now select the text that says "Edit Me" and press the "Tab" key on your keyboard to enter edit mode. Now you can type your own text, then press the "Tab" key again to exit edit mode.

👆 In this example we have set the name text to simply be "Friends Name"

Use the "S" key on your keyboard to scale the text to the size you want. You can also use the "G" key to move the text around. Make sure it fits within the Red rectangle.

You can also easily edit the cake text message using the same method as above, just make sure it fits neatly in the red rectangle.

👆 Here we have changed it to read "Its Your Birthday"

Once you have set your text, now you simply need to choose the age of the person, and press the "Run Scene Setup" button in the 3D Names Panel. This sets the numbers of candles, the balloons and also sets up all of the physics settings for the later steps. It also removes the red setup guides for you.

🎂 As you can see our cake now has 44 candles and the balloons also say "44" 🎈

At this point our scene is 250 frames (around 8s) long, and if you like you can render it out as is using the F12 key for an image, or "Ctrl + F12" (or "CMD + F12" on Mac) for a video. Of if you want to make it even better see the nest steps!

Under our main setup panel, is a panel called "Adjust Colors" - here you can easily change the icing, text and color of the balloons at the end of the animation with our preset materials.

Under the colors panel there is another panel called "Confetti Physics" - to set this up, you simply need to first clicks the "Setup Confetti" button - if you are on Windows this will bring up a small console window, if on a Mac then it will do this in the background and Blender may appear to freeze for a few minutes, but this is normal, then finally once this is done, press the "Bake Physics" button and it will cache the simulation data. Again this may take a few minutes, and freezing is normal, and if on windows you will see a console window pop up to show you the progress.

🎉 Once finished the confetti will be all setup and the animation length will be 400 frames (or around 13s)

The 4th and final panel is the "Render Settings" panel - we have added 4 settings, Draft, Medium, High and Ultra. Draft will only take around 5-10 minutes to render. Ultra can take around 5-10 hours to render, but the results are amazing. To be fair the Medium and High settings still give really good results so if you're in a rush then use either of these.