Controlling Virtual Lights in Unreal Engine via OSC from TouchDesigner

Unreal Engine, well known for its association with video games including the Unreal series (for which it was named) and more recently Fortnite, has been gaining popularity as a tool for virtual production, interactive/immersive projects and realistic real-time rendering.

Many developers augment their TouchDesigner projects with Unreal to take advantage of the 3D capabilities Unreal offers, while working with TouchDesigner for its ability to quickly prototype, Python integration, and connect to a wide variety of devices and protocols. As both Unreal and TouchDesigner support OSC messaging, it’s a common tool to use for sending control information and data from one software to the other.

In this tutorial, Jack DiLaura walks you through setting up a simple OSC-based connection between TouchDesigner and Unreal Engine, allowing you to control the overhead lights of a highly detailed model of a subway car rendered in Unreal with CHOP signals from TouchDesigner. You’ll learn how to set up basic functionality within Unreal Engine to receive OSC messages, parse their addresses, and route the content to parameters of the objects within your scene.

Chapters:
00:00:00 - Unreal Engine download and Epic Games Marketplace
00:04:21 - Setting up the TouchDesigner Network
00:07:39 - Setting up the Unreal Engine Project
00:10:36 - OSC Receiver in Unreal Engine
00:15:56 - OSC Server
00:22:08 - Testing the OSC connection
00:27:59 - Routing Messages to the Intensity Level of Lighting
00:33:57 - Adjusting the Lighting Intensity
00:40:01 - Rebuilding Lighting Effects
00:45:31 - Generating RGB Values and Setting Light Color
00:51:00 - More TouchDesigner and Immersive Content

[hatsunemikuchannel]

11:48: Installing OSC Receiver

12:28: Open Blueprint

12:48: Open Event Graph

13:52: Getting How To Send An OSC Message

17:00: OSC Setup

24:00:

24:30:

Receive IP Address: 127.0.0.1

Port: 10000

[Zariel_]

this was a great tutorial. thanks! i'm gonna experiment with unreal & touchdesigner integration in the future.

[thanhvytrn]

Thank you, this tutorial is really great!

[parse_error]

Thanks! Next step is understanding how to receive data from multiple channels. Will work on that right now! :)

[Qwert_Zuiop]

Thank you so much, very well explained and easy to follow.

[jreamworks]

hey, im having abit of trouble i want to use my own scene with piont lights i have set up and not a BP overhead light like you referrence. not sure where the issue is, could i email you some still and see where the problem might be?

[swagman]

Im having issues after 00:40:01 my lights wont flicker i followed the turotial to a T any help?

[georgeliu]

Hey,

Reaaly great tutorial. I'm trying to expand on what you've done here by outputing several channels from touchdesigner into unreal engine, but I'm having trouble getting both of them reading in at the same time. It seems to only read chan1 or chan2 at a single time. I've been trying to use the wildcard in duplicates of the blueprint to make it work but I wonder if there's a better or more optimized way of doing it?

[junchenzhou]

Hi, this is a wonderful tutorial, but I wasn't able to connect the CreateOSCServer node to the variable TD_OSC_Server at 19:20 in your tutorial, it says that the OSCserver reference is not compatible with the OSC server reference? Any suggestions on why that happens? Thank you so much!

[NoAds-nh]

To run this does it have to be in the unreal “app” or could it work in a packaged game?

[SannaS-tj]

Awesome tutorial as always!
I have a small question, i'm trying to have another LFO modulating the spotlight, i copied the network and pasted in the same blueprint, but it's not sending any signal out, i'm wondering what it could be.
I debugged it, and the signal after the second wildcard's branch is not outputting a signal, even though i added another OSC channel in TD with another name, and put that name in the second wildcard

[JGHoyos]

Great Tutorial, did you test in Unreal 5.5? it dosent recive any osc messege, update from a 5.4 project that are working in the same machine. Thanks a lot!

[niaxr]

💡🚥💡🚦💡🚥💡🚦💡🚥 ....swiiiish, it works, yaay... time to play with some lights!! 🥳🎉

[dudunikolaishvili]

This is a useful tutorial! I got a question tho. What do I do if I want OSC to influence things like point lights, spotlights and rect lights, instead of the blueprints

[faithu]

Hi I am running this on UE 5.4.2 and followed all of your instructions without an issue but nothing happened when I push play to test the OSC connection. I set my IP address and port to Receive IP Address: 127.0.0.1; Port: 10000 but when push play I don't see the value messages from TD. Do you know if it's different with UE 5.4?

[datempress]

It work! but after i tried to play around with Audio Trigger it seems the light doesn't flicker anymore. Is it because of the IP? If so i already set it on 0.0.0.0

Edited: Nvm, i found out i forgot to name one of the channel in TD

[bentheremedia]

Do you have any tips on how to manipulate an objects local coordinates instead of changing a lights intensity? I'm new to blueprints and I feel like I'm close but I'm struggling to convert the OSC float value into a transform value on a specific coordinate. Thanks in advance!

[christophermuckle]

Is it possible to render this out as a sequence while maintaining the inputs from touchdesigner? use case is rendering a scene with lights that are synced with the beat of a song.

[MrHotsharkAble]

Can you do this with the free version of TouchDesigner?

[moebiusSurfing]

Hello. Thanks for sharing.
The project files are for the TD files,
Where we can get the UE scene?