Isometric, for real
The camera is orthographic: no perspective, parallel edges, the language of a miniature or a board game. It never cuts; it pushes, pulls and turns a few degrees around the city, which is the only thing that reveals depth.
A one-minute film
Voltway lookLaying the first tile…
A film for the Voltway look · 1:00 · 30 bars at 120
Movepossibilityforward.
A one-minute film for Voltway, the fictional energy-careers look on this shelf, made in isometric 2.5D. A red spark drops into a gray void; tiles flip up around it, a battery cell rises and opens, sixty-three cells become a plant, and a white miniature city grows outward from it on the beat — roads, towers, homes, turbines, slow toy traffic, people at work. Then power floods the road network and the city settles onto a plinth. Every frame is rendered in your browser as it plays; the score is code, cut to the same bars.
- Runtime
- 1:00
- Tempo
- 120 BPM · 30 bars
- Picture
- three.js, orthographic isometric
- Light
- Sun, sky, ambient occlusion, tilt-shift
- Frames recorded
- None
- Sound
- Original score, synthesised in code
ChaptersSIX STEPS, ONE CITY
InventoryCOUNTED FROM THE CODE THAT DRAWS IT
- Tiles
- 841A 29 × 29 grid. The middle 121 flip up first, the rest ring by ring.
- Cells
- 63Nine by seven inside the plant, the first one opened to its layers.
- Buildings
- 52Towers, labs, homes and a plant, each rising on an eighth note.
- Trees
- 137Round and conical, a pale sage, popping in after the buildings.
- Vehicles
- 23Two loops of slow toy traffic and a red lead car out of the gate.
- People
- 56Walking back and forth in the districts, about one in seven in red.
Cue sheetEVERY LINE ON SCREEN
NotesHOW IT IS MADE
Clay, light and one red
Everything is white or the look's cool gray. Form comes from a low sun, a sky light, contact shadows from ambient occlusion and a light tilt-shift blur. Red is kept for the spark, the lead car, the chargers and the power on the roads, as on the page it was made for.
Built on the beat
The city grows outward from the plant: each building's start time is its distance from the centre, rounded to an eighth note, and the score plays a soft pop on the same grid. Hits, breaks and chapter cuts are the same bar numbers in the picture and the music.
The look's own words
Every line on screen comes from the Voltway look's copy — its headline, its about text, its cards. Voltway is fictional; nothing here describes a real company or a real job.