Unreal

Unreal is at its core, a game engine created by Epic Games but it has a large swath of applications in the live performance industry. Unreal offers an excellent real-time 3D environment that can create stunning visuals without rendering.  Programming can be done either with its built-in nodes or directly in C++.  It is capable of releasing on most modern gaming and VR systems as well as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. 

Unreal is used extensively in virtual production pipelines and can be connected to either professional tracking gear or more consumer-grade options such as the HTC Vive.

There are substantial assets available both paid or for free available on the Epic Marketplace and the engine comes with example content built into it.

While there are many great tutorials available online (both from Epic and from the creator community) Unreal has a fairly steep learning curve and requires pretty hefty computer resources to run.

COST: Free until a project makes 1 million dollars in gross lifetime revenue


Voicemeeter Potato

Voicemeter Potato is a virtual audio mixer utility for internal audio routing and creating virtual audio devices. It is the most advanced member of the Voicemeeter family and has options for Internal FX and External AUX through a send/return workflow. Potato is particularly useful if you want to route audio from one program (such as chrome) to another (like zoom) and it functions by creating 3 virtual input and 3 virtual output devices. Anywhere that can take a mic input can now be fed whatever audio you desire. It also comes with slots for 5 physical inputs and 5 physical outputs. Voicemeter contains a basic recording function. 

Additionally, Voicemeeter Potato contains a VBAN (or VB-Audio Network) utility. By enabling the VBAN you can send audio from one computer to another over a shared local network (an excellent solution if you want to all be in one zoom meeting and don’t want feedback). VB audio also makes additional iOS & Android apps to add VBAN functionality to mobile devices.

COST:

  • Voicemeeter is built off a donationware model


VPN

Stands for virtual private network.  VPNs extend a private network across a public network (such as the internet).  Many folks use VPNs to change their IP address for security or streaming purposes or to log into a remote office but they have many artistic possibilities as well.  Users on the same VPN can send direct network commands (such as OSC or rtpMIDI) to control software, trigger cues, etc even if they are not in the same physical space.   VPNs can be set up manually but there are also various existing utilities that have free tiers such as VPN Hamachi or ZeroTier.


Wireshark

Wireshark is a utility for monitoring and analyzing network traffic. Useful in higher level troubleshooting, wireshark allows for isolation by IP address, port, protocol, network card etc. It allows for the analysis of data packets in hundreds of different protocols and it runs on pretty much any platform.

Great when trying to analyze traffic from specific devices or troubleshoot tcp/ip messages

COST: Free


Zoom

One of Zoom’s main draws is that at this point pretty much everyone knows how to join and participate in a zoom call.  It has excellent compatibility across browsers & operating systems and is fairly constantly updating with new features and functionality.  Zoom is a particularly good option for user groups with variable internet reliability as it will considerably throttle quality before actually dropping a user.  While this might make for a more frustrating call lag-wise, it is better than not being able to communicate at all.  Some of Zoom’s newer features include automatic transcription/subtitles for English-speaking users, the ability to add pronouns to user profiles, and the option to save custom gallery orders.  

COST:

  • Free unlimited 1:1 meetings

  • 3+ participants capped at 40min

  • Paid plans range:

    • $20/month/license

    • $30/month/license for teams

    • up to $132/month/license for webinars & events


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