Jie Liu's Blog

The inspiration for my story comes from my own life, so I chose my current bedroom as the setting for my story. By using a familiar environment, I can more accurately depict every detail in the scene, enhancing the story’s realism and intimacy.

The inspiration for my story comes from my own life, so I chose my current bedroom as the setting for my animation. I hope that by using this familiar environment, it can provide a precise and realistic scene reference for my animation. This approach not only enhances the details and authenticity of the animation but also saves me a significant amount of time and effort in manual modeling. By utilizing the existing bedroom setting, I can focus more on the design of the characters and the storyline, making the entire creation process more efficient. Additionally, a realistic setting helps to enhance the audience’s sense of immersion and resonance.

However, the scanning results were not satisfactory, with many issues of interpenetration and misalignment. Additionally, there were blank areas where the scan failed to capture certain parts. This significantly compromises the integrity and accuracy of the scene, requiring additional time and effort to fix and fill in the gaps. This situation has made me reconsider the feasibility of using the scanned data or look for alternative solutions to ensure the quality of the final scene and the smooth progress of the animation.

In this lesson, we drop the effects from TD onto UE objects in real-time.

1. Setting up TouchDesigner (TD)： In TD, add a “Spout out” node after the node you want to output, which allows you to share the video effect between applications in real time. Note that the output name must be the same between programs.
2. Setting up Unreal Engine (UE)： In UE, make sure the “Off-World Live” plugin is enabled. Place an “Actor” in the scene to receive the TD data, this “Actor” is “OWL Spout Receiver Manager This “Actor” is the “OWL Spout Receiver Manager”.
3. Adjust the settings in the Details panel of the “OWL Spout Receiver Manager” to configure the receiver, including specifying input names and creating render targets.

TouchDesigner is a node-based visual programming language for real-time interactive multimedia content. It can be used to create interactive installations, live visuals, and generative art. TouchDesigner enables artists and designers to craft immersive, dynamic, and highly responsive multimedia projects. It can seamlessly integrate various data sources, sensors, and multimedia elements to produce captivating and engaging interactive experiences.

Two factors were interacting with the visuals:

• The ambient music.
• The microphone is in the middle of the installation.

I believe that in TD (TouchDesigner), as long as you can connect the nodes, you can create truly amazing effects. Each node represents different functions and operations, and by flexibly combining and connecting these nodes, you can achieve various complex visual and interactive effects. Whether it’s creating real-time audiovisual experiences or building dynamic multimedia displays, the connections between nodes offer endless possibilities and creativity. Once you master the use of these nodes, you can explore an infinite array of artistic expressions and technical innovations in TD.

4 effects I tried out.

Storyboard：

In the bedroom at night, a character is sitting on the bed playing with his mobile phone. The time displayed on the phone is ?? :??. The character lies down and closes his eyes. The next second, he opens his eyes and goes to a white room. He has a canvas in front of him, and underneath it are several paint buckets, and a roller brush. He picked up the brush and made a stroke on the canvas, and colors and patterns appeared. He continued to make several strokes, and different colors and patterns appeared. He painted faster and faster. Suddenly, the dream was over. He sat up with his eyes open in reality and picked up his mobile phone, which showed the time ??:??

Research board

Live Link VCAM is a tool that can link mobile devices with Unreal Engine. It allows viewers to see and experience scenes from the project in the first-person perspective, essentially functioning as a simplified VR device, though it is presented in a flat format. I believe this tool greatly facilitates the creation of first-person view (POV) animations for creators. When creating a POV shot, I need to consider its position, angle, movement speed, and even the shake and amplitude of the camera. This usually requires numerous adjustments to achieve a good result. However, with this tool, I can easily create these shots. It allows me to intuitively adjust and optimize the first-person perspective, saving a lot of time and effort while enhancing the overall quality and viewing experience of the animation.

1.If the computer is connected to the phone’s wifi.

After the computer successfully connects to the phone’s WiFi. PC: win+R Enter cmd, press Enter, and enter ipconfig next to ”Users name>“

Then find the IP address of your computer and enter it into the UE as “Unicast Endpoint” and add: 0. For example, my computer’s IP address is 172.20.10.8, then I have to enter 172.20.10.8:0.

In this way, the live link VCAM on the mobile device searches for the computer device and then connects. We can then make it “active” in the project.

2.If at home (using public wifi), we need to set it up differently.

This is a video showing my phone successfully connected to the computer and “active” in my project. As you can see, the connection between the camera and the phone is very successful, allowing me to view my project environment in a 360-degree panorama. However, when I tried to walk around, the camera hardly moved. I later discovered that this was because my scene was too large, making the movement distance almost negligible within the project. Fortunately, this issue can be adjusted using tools on both sides. I can make the necessary adjustments in the settings of both the phone and the project tools to ensure that the camera more noticeably follows and reflects the movement accordingly.