We’ve spotted an unlikey trend in music videos of late, using one of our favorite emerging technologies: 3D modeling. While the 3D effect may be all the rage on the big screen and is reportedly coming soon to a living room near you, this trend differentiates itself from all the Avatar wannabes in that it’s not just about taking a two-dimensional image and giving the illusion of three-dimensionality. Rather, all of these videos were created by scanning the artists’ faces to create accurate, to-scale models of their actual faces, using similar technology to what creators Radical Friend developed for our round-the-world events this summer.It all started with Radiohead’s “House of Cards” video in 2008:Then, more recently, Broken Social Scene followed suit:And this week we found a new video for the band Darkstar’s new single, “Gold”:What’s driving this odd music video trend? Fear not, this isn’t just the most recent, high-tech manifestation of inflated vanity within the music industry. Part of what’s fueling the proliferation of this technique is the fact that the technology used to create these videos was developed in openFrameworks and released as open source by designer Kyle McDonald, enabling anyone to use it. Where will 3D modeling appear next? Who knows? But judging by the evidence, it could very well be in the new music video for your favorite band.
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