I’m starting to develop a small TouchDesigner lab for my design students to explore, and I’d love your input.
I’m still fairly new to TD, but I have a small research fund of about $1,000 and want to be thoughtful about what I purchase. Right now, I have a Femto Bolt camera and a nice desktop connected to a 200” UHD projector.
Given that setup, what tools, sensors, controllers, or plugins would you recommend purchasing to help students experiment with interactive design, projection, and real-time visuals? Many thanks for your recommendations!
Awesome! Wish I had a teacher like you when I was young!
I find it always helps to fire up students enthousiasm when their software is connected to something physical outside of the screen.
Some suggestions:
Get an Artnet to DMX node. (You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble when picking this ethernet version instead of a cheaper USB to DMX node). There’s a Pknight Artnet-DMX node on amazon for just ~$70. Now you can control any DMX device from TD, and such devices can be found cheap also second hand, such as simple RGB ledpars, but especially cool some small moving head led beam fixtures (there’s a new Pan/Tilt CHOP awesome for this), or even a smoke machine in the classroom
With a simple webcam they can use Nvidia Face/Body tracking to control their installations (if you have a Nvidia GPU).
SlamTec makes lowbudget LiDAR scanners (already for ~$100) and there’s a community-made plugin for TD (search this forum) . As LiDARs can see longrange these are great to make a large wall or floor interactive (this would be a great combination with those dmx controlled moving head fixtures where the lightbeams can track a dancer for instance).
Ledstrips. The strips are cheap but usually a bit fragile, so not ideal to pack/unpack every lesson, but can perhaps be installed in a fixed location? Using an Artnet to led pixel controller your students can map video on the ledstrips. (These are not my specialty, but I’m sure the master of ledstrip control @Peeet can guide you to the perfect educational setup within your budget)
There are cheap POE-IP infrared security cameras that support RTSP output, such as Amcrest (which are well documented) or Hikvision. You can get them new for less than ~$100, and you can receive their infrared video over ethernet in TD using the Video Stream In TOP. You can put such a cam on the ceiling (there are also fisheye versions) and use Blob Track TOP in TD to track people walking around in the room.
3d projection mapping, for instance build a miniature city, or landscape with a river, from blocks of styrofoam/carton/wood glued together on a table. Then find some extra second hand projectors, and map the construction from multiple angles, so people can walk around it and interact with the miniature landscape using any of the sensors above. Stuff like this is running in many musea worldwide, and you can make it as simple/advanced as you want.
also I’d consider a cheap moving head LED light. $50 max. make sure it’s artnet compatible. We often use them in our workshops. use either with hand tracking or any CHOP or POP pattern.
For Addressable LEDs, I would definitely recommend any pre-built WLED controller (usually ESP32 based these days) and as Idzard mentioned above, go with ethernet for as much stuff as you can. The event / installation world revolves around ethernet since nobody can rely on wireless once the audience shows up.
I have been using these quite a lot because they are relatively cheap, have power distribution built in, and can power 5V or 12V Addressable LEDs (24V is rare) also - already in an enclosure.
These are very high quality build, though you have to choose 5V or 12V ahead of time. You can get an 8 output controller here that is a great price and well built, but you also have to stick it in a box (just use tupperware)
If you want to get each student their own controller, get a bulk pack of ESP32 controllers - usually the D1 Mini / WeMos style is the way to go and you can find them regularly for under US$10 each. Then flash WLED onto it directly via https://install.wled.me
For the LEDs themselves, I would recommend something durable like the WS2811 “bullet” style strands, WS2812 “pebble / seed” style strings, or the WS2815 strips that are rated IP67 (most durable for re-use)
And then any suitable 12VDC power supply that can output a couple of amps.
I agree getting a couple little cheap moving lights would be a good idea as well so they can learn how 3D positioning and euler Rx Ry Rz translates into real world Pan and Tilt. Though most of them will be direct DMX512 XLR input (not ArtNet) which the pKnight DMX Node mentioned above will then let you control.
