I decided to visualise Flume's 'Innocence' because of its irregular-sounding rhythm and moody atmosphere. Following my previous audiovisual experiments, I also wanted to make the process even more streamline with the thought of this becoming a faster process.

For the audio, I extracted a simple rhythm track using proxy kicks and snares, which then allowed me to drive more accurate values into the transformations.

I wanted to contain the process within Houdini and Unreal Engine because of the potential of the former and the speed of the latter. I was also tempted to go back to the previous audio-reactive CHOP setups with a solid form, but after some experimentation, I realised that I could make a more responsive trail system inside Houdini as opposed to using Cinema 4D and tripling the cache size. 

That being said, I still wanted to keep it as simple as possible, which led me to using some simple circle splines and a trail node. Using a bit of advice and a few lines of VEX I was able to create a system that would fade out over time, creating a more ethereal appearance.

As per usual, the environment work was done using Unreal Engine and Megascans, with the experimental water features. The space felt like it needed to be secluded and almost hidden, like a cave. Having lines as geometry also meant that Unreal Engine could render them out at a decent resolution without noticeable aliasing.

Rendered in ACES, I used DaVinci Resolve for final grading to add to the visual mood.

Check out Flume's 'Innocence' below!