2024
The Midnight Zone
An audiovisual installation built around a real-time GLSL SPH fluid simulation implemented in TouchDesigner.
Year
2024
Client / Venue
APOG Music Festival
Location
Darrington, WA
Role
Concept, software, audio-reactive system
Tools
TouchDesigner / GLSL SPH fluid simulation / Ableton Live
Project Type
Audiovisual Installation
Overview
The Midnight Zone is an audiovisual installation created with music producer Slayde . Musical events inject forces into a fluid simulation, shaping its evolving motion, turbulence, density, and color.
Challenge
The goal was a visual system that moves with the music itself. Musical events needed to translate into motion, turbulence, density, and color, so the simulation would follow the structure of each track.
System
A real-time GLSL SPH fluid simulation with 1 million particles runs in TouchDesigner. Slayde produced the soundtrack in Ableton Live and arranged the finished tracks and ambient passages on a playback timeline. As the timeline plays, Ableton sends pre-authored MIDI note and timeline data over OSC to TouchDesigner, where those events inject forces and drive color changes in the simulation. Each section uses its own fluid behavior, allowing the piece to evolve in sync with the finished soundtrack.
Building the Simulation
I implemented the SPH simulation in GLSL and TouchDesigner by adapting methods from Robert Bridson’s Fluid Simulation for Computer Graphics and Doyub Kim’s Fluid Engine Development. The project let me translate those established concepts into a real-time, million-particle system while exploring a simulation method I had not worked with before.
The rendering and particle-packing approach also drew inspiration from Mykhailo Moroz.
Shown At
- With Slayde | APOG Music Festival | 2024
Gallery
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