Richard Barbieri: Explore the Solar Sea in new 360° video

Richard Barbieri

Richard Barbieri has released a 360° video for his track Solar Sea.

It features on the former Japan and Porcupine Tree man’s new album Planets + Persona which launched earlier this month via Kscope.

The video was created by Miles Skarin and takes the viewer to new worlds and shows colliding planets, ice crystals inside a hollow comet and volcanic asteroids spewing molten lava into open space.

After watching the video through a VR headset, Barbieri says: “That was incredible. It’s amazing that Miles has captured the movement and turbulence of planets, the particles and matter that I was trying to reference in the music.

“It’s a totally immersive experience and, along with the artwork, another important addition to the album experience.”

Skarin has also gone into depth about how he and the team at Crystal Spotlight created the video.

He says: “Following the concept of Solar Sea and drawing on the album artwork, we created dramatic environments which showcase the variety and possibility of distant planets and star systems.”

“These scenes were created in Maxon’s Cinema 4D by building the individual objects required for each scene and placing them in 3D space. To render the scenes, we used Video Copilot’s Element 3D, which allowed us to add materials and lighting.

“We then animated a path for the camera to follow which would become our 360° viewpoint. The scenes were set up for 360° VR using Mettle’s Skybox plug-in. These tools and plugins were all brought together using Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, which create a very solid pipeline for 360 VR video production.”

Barbieri begins a tour of England tonight (March 16) in support of Planets + Persona. Find details below.

Richard Barbieri 2017 tour dates

Mar 16: Exeter The Phoenix, UK
Mar 25: Birmingham & Midland Institute, UK
Mar 26: Birmingham The Blue Orange Theatre, UK
Mar 28: London Hoxton Hall, UK

Steven Wilson and Richard Barbieri on the magic of Porcupine Tree

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