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Introduction

Every year, during NTUEE night, the "Light Dance" event dazzles with tailor-made costumes featuring programmable lights and epic game-like items. Over 50 dedicated individuals spend a year designing the hardware, software, costumes, and choreography for this mesmerizing performance, bringing people's fantasies to life through awe-inspiring movements and captivating dances that shine in the dark.

Software

In 2022, I led the Light Dance software team and oversaw the design of a software system that integrated a web light editor, Raspberry Pi controller, and STM hardware controller. This year brought significant changes as the hardware team introduced optical fiber to replace EL (electroluminescent) lighting. This shift resulted in a more stable and lightweight hardware design that supports color changes. Consequently, the software team had to adapt and enable color selection in the light effect editor to accommodate this new feature.

3D Editor

Moreover, we have enhanced the light effect editor by introducing a new 3D simulation feature, making it more intuitive and user-friendly. The whole simulation is powered by Three.js and the 3D character are designed in Blender. With this update, users can now easily adjust the position of dancers within a 3D scene, where each dancer is represented by a character wearing a light dance suit on every part of their body. Users can customize the light effects on different body parts and also change the color of optical fiber lighting according to their preferences.

Co-editing

Lastly, to ensure seamless collaboration and avoid conflicts, we revamped the backend to support real-time co-editing of the same light effect by multiple users simultaneously. Unlike previous versions, where only one user could edit at a time, now multiple users can work together on the light editing without the risk of unintentionally erasing each other's efforts.

Performance