Light Controlled by Sound in Real-time

Mar 14 2025 Animation Intern Project Unreal Engine ToughDesigner Open Sound Control Audio Visualization

🔧 Step 1: Room Construction and Cinematic Setup

Using assets from Fab, I built a 3m Ă— 3m Ă— 5m interior space in Unreal Engine. The scene includes a variety of lighting elements:

• Environmental light simulates the overall ambient condition and expresses the transition between daytime and nighttime.

• Indirect (indirectional) lighting is added to fill in darker areas, ensuring that key parts of the room remain visible without relying on harsh direct light.

• Bolt-generated light sources are placed as decorative and functional fixtures within the room.

• A sparkling wall lamp that would later be controlled by sound

To present the room in a cinematic way, I also created a level sequence that animates both camera movement and lighting transitions, allowing viewers to fully appreciate the room’s structure and visual details.

🎵 Step 2: Audio-Driven Lighting with TouchDesigner (via Open Sound Control)

In the second part of the project, I used TouchDesigner to perform real-time audio analysis, extracting data from a music track. The analyzed sound features—such as beat intensity or frequency response—were sent to Unreal Engine using Open Sound Control (OSC), a protocol for real-time communication between software.

Inside Unreal Engine, I created a custom Blueprint for the sparkling wall lamp, which listens to the OSC signals and triggers lighting effects based on the incoming audio data. As a result, the lamp sparkles dynamically in sync with the music, bringing the environment to life through audiovisual interaction.

This project highlights how I integrate creative scene composition, technical lighting design, and real-time audio interactivity—skills essential for technical art and virtual production.