'Pattern-based animation' is the field of animation where the artist/composer creates animation sequences by interacting with the behavioral response of a network of intelligent cells suspended in a three-dimensional environment. Visual-Synth is a program that uses a pattern-based language derived from the fields of cellular automata, crystallography, and music composition.

Cellular growth is modeled inside of Visual-Synth by specifying 'rules' that resemble the way in which DNA controls growth in an organism. A rule states what outside information the cell considers before making a decision of how to split or propagate to the next cell. A spatial lattice contains cells that own rules that in turn control how the cell behaves. The discrete steps of the cell's behavior are captured in animation sequences.

As a cellular system grows, the observer may freely move about the lattice and view the cellular growth from any perspective. Each movement of the observer is captured and each step of growth is captured in the animation. Dimension, depth perception, and shading are all dependant on the position and state of the lattice lights. As the observer moves about the lattice, the lights may be set to track the observer's focus. There are other potential elements that could be added to the animation steps, but for now… growth, observer, and lights are the basic elements that may be animated.

Rules may be classified by how the rule propagates. A one-dimensional rule only considers the neighbors above the current cell before splitting or changing state. A two-dimensional rule considers its neighbors above, below, and to the side before splitting or changing state. A three-dimensional rule considers all of the neighbors including the front and back neighbors. Unconstrained rules do not have neighbors that live in the lattice, but instead create neighbors during the execution of the rule. . One-, two-, and three-dimensional rules may be iterated thousands of times during a cellular growth session, where an 'unconstrained' rule only executes once.

The field of animation covers a wide scope of presentation technologies. Fortunately one presentation technology has emerged as the standard for world: DVD/MPG. The graphics standard that enables your DVD player to play movies is the MPG compression standard. The Channel Light project utilizes MPG as its delivery platform. From ChannelLight.com you may download 'mpg' video files that capture the animation sequences. Obviously, the choice to use 'mpg' as a delivery platform implies the use of Internet broadband services. If you are viewing the Channel Light project without a broadband connection, then please just enjoy the photographs and order the interactive DVD disk, which contains hundreds of journeys into the world of crystallography, cellular growth, and music.