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Link3 Jun 2023Rigs & DIYArt & installationsProducts & tools

A 16-minute TouchDesigner build for audio-reactive Chladni particles

Factory Settings walks through driving a particle system with the Chladni equation and live audio, start to finish.

Open at youtube.com ↗Factory Settings · 16 min

This is a practical tutorial rather than a showreel. Over about sixteen minutes, the Factory Settings channel builds an audio-reactive particle system in TouchDesigner where the particle distribution is governed by the Chladni plate equation, so incoming audio reshapes the nodal field in real time.

What makes it useful is that it stays with the maths long enough to be adaptable. Once you understand which parameters in the graph correspond to the mode numbers, you can substitute your own frequency source, including a live signal from the same generator driving a physical plate, and get a screen image that tracks the real one.

It is not a physics simulation. This is the closed-form square-plate expression driving particle positions, which produces convincing figures for simple modes and diverges from a real plate at higher ones. Treat it as a visuals technique that happens to be built on the right equation.

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