OSCulator (2022-)
OSCulator is an OSC and MIDI plugin designed to simplify the integration of external control software with Unreal Engine. It parses and routes incoming messages directly to the actors you want to interact with, reducing the need for manual data plumbing.
It is intended for artists who want to bridge existing workflows from other softwares into an Unreal scene, with minimal setup and maximum flexibility before committing to a rigid structure.
https://github.com/baronlanteigne/OSCulator
As a digital artist (so I’m neither a traditional media artist nor a programmer!), I was not satisfied with my current toolset and how they were connected. I believe when the tools aren’t seamlessly flowing one into the other, the artist who attempts to combine various mediums into a richer experience is quickly turned into a file processing agent having to sort and convert assets just to try something new.
Learning a new software initially leads to a lower output at first. Over the years I’ve learned that society discourages that but I can’t help it; I’m addicted.
Luckily, the learning curve becomes much smoother when existing skills can be reused in a new context. I’ve been building my own control interfaces in TouchDesigner for a long time now and they offer a couple of tricks that help me keep things procedural and avoid the timeline for just a bit longer. I figured I would reuse those ideas to control Unreal Engine. The idea here is to benefit from its rendering engine, but retain my established workflow.
The deeper I dive into Unreal, the more I appreciate its inner structure and I’ve started building more autonomous systems that no longer require bi-directional communication with TD and Ableton. Still, I’m convinced that maintaining those open bridges across platforms is an essential part of my process.
I’m increasingly bored with how strongly a tool shapes what artists create. Video game engines were historically designed to be modified to better fit the intent of the developers. While Unreal Engine follows this tradition, it’s also ambitiously built for larger teams of specialists. It encourages a rigid but scalable structure that I’ve grown to appreciate… but that also kills the vibe when all you want is to test a novel idea.
By sharing this plugin I want to encourage exploration and maintain an interoperability mindset that is so well established at the core of tools like TouchDesigner.
Your ideas, suggestions and any kind of contributions are welcome.
Collaborators
Dani Kolgan (advice and some programming)
Conseil des Arts du Québec (Déploiement Numérique)