What is TouchDesigner?

proskynesis · 2023-11-24T10:16:07.425Z

It would be really interesting to get a detailed rundown by anyone who made a full liveset with TD and hardware alone. I mean as in playing with a bunch of musicgear and at the same time playing TD. On screen, with midi or with controllers.

Im finally almost finished with the first working system for a show in 2 month but got some shit to solve until its stable for action. Most modulation are auto with lfos and stuff but to make it really weird I need to change some things manually as it is now.
Built a custom component for control and tried to have it as simple as possible but its still a risk to loose focus from the audio.

mimetaur · 2023-11-26T20:29:27.197Z

So I’ve started working on this. I put my tracks together with an MPC and synth, and then use multiple audio ins on my computer for analysis combined with midi in to get tempo and sync data. I’m trying to put each one of my tracks in one big base component that takes audio analysis and sync chop data in and then outputs top data.

I decided I’m going to send touch CC’s and program changes on different tracks on my MPC, and then mute and unmute different combinations to avoid having to having to directly control anything in touch live. It doesn’t change that much in reality, and neither does my music really, so I can keep it pretty simple.

proskynesis · 2023-11-27T10:03:17.885Z

Cool!

mimetaur:

I’m trying to put each one of my tracks in one big base component that takes audio analysis and sync chop data in and then outputs top data.

Care to explain this in more detail? Do you switch between different systems for every track?

Maybe it wasnt necessary but I started a new thread about TD for folks that knows what it is.

https://www.elektronauts.com/t/touchdesigner-for-live-visuals

alechko · 2023-12-17T18:01:33.424Z

anyone knows if I’m allowed to upload videos from non-commercial version of TD to non monetized youtube channel? or is it considered commercial and I’d need a commercial license anyways?

re5et · 2023-12-17T20:56:01.920Z

This persons work is nice , I think minimal music works nicely in techy style glitch visuals

Instagram

Hiroki Okamoto on Instagram: "#beatgraffiti With the support of...

1,113 likes, 10 comments - v0id_scuy on October 31, 2023: "#beatgraffiti With the support of AMCJ(@amcj_official), I will have AV live performances and wor..."

kirlian · 2024-04-07T17:34:16.965Z

I first got into TouchDesigner via Amon Tobin’s ISAM project. Here’s an article on Derivative’s own site discussing the application built in TD, the projection mapping et cetera, as well as some video of it in action.

There’s a decent book from Pakt publishing which goes in depth into Max/MSP in conjunction with TD that is pretty good, if you like learning from books. pppanik has some good tutorials on youtube for creating obligatory generative pieces

Moonwax · 2024-04-07T17:40:08.431Z

My friend is learning it heavily and sometimes I help to render some bits (because it’s heavy on CPU/GPU).
I used to work with such environments like VVVV and Processing in the past. From that perspective I find TD much friendlier to a user (no need to dive into coding, the UI is better, the primitives are not that utilitarian / low level). The only annoying part sometimes is esoteric third mouse button click to navigate, but it’s manageable

alechko · 2024-04-07T17:41:58.668Z

Moonwax:

third mouse button click to navigate

wdym? like around the grid?

Moonwax · 2024-04-07T18:40:39.948Z

just something in the interface, like zooming out or exiting from the sub-patch, nevermind

Inakito · 2024-04-27T17:46:51.519Z

goldfarb:

Houdini - like Maya/3D Studio Max/blender/Cinema4D etc
its a fully procedural node based system -

That could get some people the wrong idea as even if 3dMax, Blender, Cinema4D, or even Maya has parts that could work procedurally and be node based, they are not fully procedurally as Houdini is
(Just my two cents being involved in CGI industry for the last 15+ years).

goldfarb · 2024-04-27T22:08:08.038Z

sorry…should have put a ‘.’ after ‘etc’
this ‘it’ I was referring to was Houdini

just lazy typing - I’ve been in VFX for 20+ years (and work for SideFX)

Inakito · 2024-04-28T02:29:49.437Z

Cool! I just thought it would be of help clarifying

alechko · 2024-05-11T15:51:57.671Z

anyone else having issue with TD freezing on quit all of a sudden? can’t find any info about it but it basically started hanging every time and I have to Force Quit it, have no idea what happened, just started being like this…

alechko · 2024-06-15T14:33:58.116Z

been working on this flying thingy patch, wish I had better skills to draft a spaceship, still, TD is lots of fun

alechko · 2024-06-30T15:14:42.089Z

love this software, I can easily spend hours with it (compression does not do justice here)

(can’t add more replies where are all the TD users to bring this thread to life?)

for anyone using SOPs, found this very helpful cheat-sheet post in the TD forum, it has pics for most things to help understand better the function of the SOP

TouchDesigner forum – 28 Jul 22

SOP Cheat Sheet (w Pics; Wiki mode)

I can never remember what all the SOPs do, so I’ve been meaning to make a cheat sheet for myself There are ~95 SOPs here. Ctrl+F to search the post. Remember you can also bookmark this thread using the forum bookmark function. Add The Add SOP can...

Reading time: 9 mins 🕑 Likes: 27 ❤

dhunterrr · 2025-02-28T18:08:50.952Z

Is this still the go to guide for learning TouchDesigner? Or does anyone recommend other resources for learning it?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFrhecWXVn5862cxJgysq9PYSjLdfNiHz

I am particularly interested in getting to the point of using gesture recognition (mediapipe) or touchscreen device (phone/tablet) as an input surface to affect a video.

moredat · 2025-02-28T18:58:40.081Z

I have tried to learn it mildly during last few months. It is pretty confusing with all the CHOPs, TOPs, SOPs etc. They could be named better imo. TouchDesigner – Matthew Ragan this is the resource I have been using mainly.

My realtime graphics road interest started last fall with Three.JS programming but soon I made my way to Signalculture video synths and then to TD. My naive plan was to build my own javascript visualizer but as for now I’m focusing on TD and the video synths.

TD is such a huge thing that getting good with it requires some true passion, but overall the possibilities it enables are very intriguing. It’s basically a DAW for realtime graphics. Good thing is that it’s been around for so long that there is decent amount of tutorials online available. You just need to gradually dive deeper and keep up with it. One leg after another type of process.

The whole computer graphics topic is such a huge area that one can’t just instantly know everything. Luckily, TD helps in abstracting a lot of it into tweakable parameters without having to deal with too much math.

arctor023 · 2025-02-28T19:07:41.962Z

Bileam’s tutorials are still the most accessible. The “issue” with TD is that it can do literally anything. It is crucial to know what you want to achieve before diving into it. In your case a better understanding on parametric programming, a little bit of TD specific Python expressions and a little bit of reading the documentation will go a llmg way. Many operators also have good examples, you have to right click on them and opentheir “Operator Snippets”, this will also help a lot!

dhunterrr · 2025-02-28T19:27:18.675Z

Great, thanks for the advice and extra resource.

I have a very clear project in mind, manipulation of video using gestures (or instead a smartphone/tablet as an touch interface). The project already functions in the web, but I want to up the resolution of the video, which I think TD can probably handle HD. I’m on pretty low resolution imagery in the web.

I have good experience with Processing/P5.js, and a little with Max, so I hope I just need to sit down with the right tutorials and guides and follow along. (I really hope it is that easy for me!!).

Edit: I know from when I first tried to learn arduino, that just doing tutorials didn’t help anything stick. To @arctor023 's point, it only really clicked when I had a well defined outcome I needed to create; then it all fell into place.

Braunsen84 · 2025-03-03T14:00:43.654Z

dhunterrr:

The project already functions in the web, but I want to up the resolution of the video, which I think TD can probably handle HD. I’m on pretty low resolution imagery in the web.

You should consider, that the non commercial edition of touch designer has a limitation to the max. resolution of 1280 x 1280.