Is this the future of music video?
This interactive music video could point to a new technological direction for the music industry.
Alpha Beta Fox is a self-described 'dreamy shoegaze' band from Adelaide, Australia, and its latest futuristic, psychedelic video
fits its music style perfectly. But of more interest to web designers will be the way it's been created to work interactively on the web.
Built by Adelaide-based developer and friend of the band James Reid, the site uses the three.js WebGL library for its 3D graphics, and the Web Audio API to play the music.
At one point, viewers even get the chance to alter a video clip of the band by changing parameters with dat.GUI. (In layman's terms: wiggle the arrow keys about and see what happens.) The site isn’t optimised for mobile, but it does work in one, less common environment: it has a VR mode for Oculus Rift or similar devices.
Learning experience
It seems the site was something of a learning experience for Reid, as he included many references to classic processing algorithms and models from other 3D graphics projects: Game of Life cellular automaton, the 4D tesseract cube, Kaliset fractals, Hopalong Orbits …
"I was reading about tesseracts, then thought, 'Why not put it in the video, with people dancing around it in space?'," he says, while Alpha Beta Fox singer Tanya Giobbi adds: "We thought it was pretty awesome."
Words: Peter Gasston
Peter is a veteran web developer who now works as a technologist and frontend lead at rehabstudio. He's the author of The Book of CSS3 and The Modern Web.
Like this? Read these!
- Has your website survived mobilegeddon?
- Brilliant Wordpress tutorial selection
- The best free cursive fonts
Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access
Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription
Join now for unlimited access
Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
Get top Black Friday deals sent straight to your inbox: Sign up now!
We curate the best offers on creative kit and give our expert recommendations to save you time this Black Friday. Upgrade your setup for less with Creative Bloq.
The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Ecommerce Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Editor, Digital Art and 3D Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq.
Related articles
- New York was recreated on a virtual set for the Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn movie Daddio, and nobody knew
- The 10 best Christmas animations everyone needs to watch: from Aardman, Netflix, Disney and more
- The stunning new WWF video used a really wild animation technique
- BAFTA Breakthrough 2024 cohort announced - designers, editors, artists and more honoured