Snowflake

Watch Snowflake live in the browser

A single ice crystal grows from a seed in the middle of a night sky and branches into six arms. The ice is drawn clear, lit along its ridges, rims and growth rings, and turns slowly while the music plays; once it is grown, a kick starts a new crystal while the ghost of the old one melts away.

The growth rule is Clifford Reiter's 2005 hexagonal cellular automaton for snow crystals: vapour diffuses between cells, cells touching ice keep condensing, and a cell freezes once it holds a full unit. Depending on the background vapour density, the same rule grows plates, sectors or fern-like dendrites. Each ring keeps a tint from the moment it froze, so the crystal is a record of the song.

What it reacts to

• Loudness: sets the growth rate; growth stops in silence
• Bass: raises the vapour density, changing how the arms branch
• Treble and mids: speed up condensation, and the treble-to-bass balance tints each new ring from deep blue to lilac
• Kick drum: a kick at the moment of freezing leaves a bright ring; once a crystal is grown, a kick seeds the next one
• Hi-hats: make tiny facets of the ice glitter

Tune

Growth scales how fast ice condenses, Crystal life sets how long a crystal grows before a kick replaces it, and Ice tints the crystal.

Music that suits it

Long, slowly developing tracks such as ambient or orchestral music give a crystal time to grow full arms, and hi-hat-heavy tracks make the ice glitter.

How to play it

Install Deus, play music on Spotify, YouTube Music, Yandex Music or any other tab and click the Deus icon on that tab. Then pick Snowflake in the WebGL presets, or press ← → on the page until it comes up.