Lucid Dreaming

Lucid Dreaming is a live motion capture performance built in Unreal Engine, exploring digital burnout and the collapse of personal reality under constant screen exposure. A woman wakes, works, and dreams on repeat, each cycle deteriorating further as her subconscious begins to overwrite the world. Performed using live mocap (Motive + Unreal), the piece blends theatrical storytelling with real-time engine control, using level shifts, lighting, and body data to visualize psychological fragmentation in a tech-saturated life.

Role: Lead Unreal Engineer, Director, Art Director, Character Modeling, Movement Designer

 Behind The Scene

We used OptiTrack’s Motive system to calibrate the space and stream real-time mocap data into Unreal. The performer wore a mocap suit, and we mounted a rigid body to a handheld camera to function as the in-game camera, capturing the Metahuman's body and facial animations. The virtual camera feed was then cast onto live-rendered materials in the scene, creating dynamic screens behind the performer that updated in real time.

I created multiple Unreal sub-levels representing daytime, home, work and dream spaces. Using level streaming, we transitioned between these environments seamlessly during the performance, allowing the character to move fluidly across mental and physical spaces without interruption.