Visuals

Touchdesigner

I started learning to use TD in 2022 as a way to make visuals that dance along to any music I make, and it was my first time using any 3D software. I first did a bunch of tutorials by Elekktronaut and built a good understanding of the basics of TD. I developed a good knowledge of TD and what’s going on inside the program, and learning TD taught me to think of sound, video etc as just channels of data. Everything I have learned in TD has made it easier to understand other 3D programs, such as Unreal Engine or SideFX Houdini.

Mycellium

From a tutorial by Captain Pppanik

Audio Reactive Displacement

From a tutorial by Paul Andrew. The track is “An Exercise In Junglism 01” by me which you can listen to in full here

Matrix Rain

Tutorial by…

Houdini

Rocks Doing Stuff

Lots of learning revolving around rocks. Most of it comes from tutorials so I won’t share project files, but I end up making loads of renders so maybe someone will find a use for the video outputs.

The majority of the tutorials are from Home – Nick Medukha | 3D Design and Paul Esteves, I would highly recommend subscribing to either of their Patreon’s if you want to learn some Houdini.

Flow

Smash

Blender

Writing about Blender

Unreal Engine

Writing about Unreal Engine

Resolume

Writing about Resolume

Analogue

There are many TD tutorials on getting CRT TV type effects, so I decided to look into the real thing. Luckily my parents kept old camcorders and I now have a Canon Hi-8 camcorder to use. I then got a large CRT TV on a free stuff facebook page and started playing with feedback effects, filming the TV with the camcorder etc.

Eventually I found out about analog video glitchers and effects, and saw a device called the MisMatcher Delux from freedom enterprise portugal. This instantly caught my eye as it has patch points similar to an analog synth, and there are expansion modules available. I have a few free packs of Analog Glitch Textures available, and I will continue adding more to my packs as I learn more.

MisMatcher Delux
Audio Reactor Expansion

Attempting to repair a 8mm tape camcorder. Don’t think I can manage it to be honest!

Lighting + DMX

I was involved in lighting before I got involved with music and visuals, helping set up various concerts and festivals around Ireland. Almost all of my experience with lighting comes from a Belfast based studio, Visual Spectrum. Visual Spectrum is run by some good friends of mine, and I have been given countless opportunities to work with large scale lighting rigs. They also offer a visual and lighting master class which was the very first part of my journey into computer based art.

Like loads of people, I use cheap LED strips around my “studio” space and beyond. I always thought the bare strip was a bit ugly, so I decided to build my own lighting fixtures. I built 4 RGB LED bars with DMX control and they are now permanent fixtures which look much nicer than bare LED strips.

My next project will be building some stuff with individually addressable pixel tape.