Blank Output from CPlusPlusTop in Engine Comp

Hey! I can’t get the CPlusPlus TOP to load an output when using any .dll while running it in an Engine Comp on Windows. I don’t see any errors on the comp and if I add an Error DAT inside the .tox I’m running I don’t see any errors.

I’ve tried with the simplest setup. I compiled the .dll for the basic filter from the example custom cplus plus derivative repo. I have a Base Comp with an in TOP connected to a CPlusPlus Top and connected to an out. I used the full path to the .dll and it runs fine as is. I save that Base as a .tox and try loading it in an Engine Comp. Everything loads fine. I even exposed buttons for unloading and re-unit the CPlusPlus TOP but that made no difference. I’ve tried other .dll as well and also tried in an async mode but always get a blank output.

Any advice would be amazing!

Note I’m running TD 2025.33070 on Windows 11. Happy to use any version of TD

Hi - thanks for the report.

It looks like the CPlusPlus TOP has always silently failed in TouchEngine and we’ve never noticed - sorry about that. This will be fixed in the next release we post. There’s no workaround in the meantime unfortunately - you would have to run your plugin directly in TouchDesigner.

If the reason you’re running it in an Engine COMP is because the plugin itself is blocking TouchDesigner’s cooking, perhaps you can look at fixing that issue within your plugin - for example by offloading work to the GPU, deferred rendering and/or multithreading CPU work. Ultimately that will be more efficient than running it in TouchEngine.