It looks like he's using a matrix to create cartesian coordinates in a model-view space and then performing some basic linear algebra on the points to animate i

It looks like he's using a matrix to create cartesian coordinates in a model-view space and then performing some basic linear algebra on the points to animate it. For a primer on 3D worlds check out http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?page_id=1217 http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?page_id=1217 where they go over it using WebGL.