I was recently introduced to TouchDesigner and hope to learn enough to integrate it into another project. I’ve browsed tutorials, youtube and this forum for the information I seek but hope the community may direct me more specifically.
I’ve built simple TOP networks and included CHOP’s. What I fear is that I will miss the fundamentals to achieve my goals in the labyrinth of information about this powerful tool. My use case is composing and manipulating basic geometry COMP’s. I’m willing to put the work in but wow I’m confused.
There’s a lot of material out on the web these days. The fundamentals are a hard thing to master in Touch, especially as there’s always some other rabbit hole to fall into. That’s bound to happen - all of us at one point or another start in one direction only to find ourselves lost in the wiki.
When you say that you want to work with Geometry COMPs what are you after there exactly? Is that collision, simulation, and instancing? Or is that render picking and geometry manipulation? I both remind myself, and others that there’s no wrong way to work with TouchDesigner… there are only more or less efficient ways to solve problems.
If you have some visual references for the type of work you’re aiming for it can be easier to give you a nudge in the right direction - what you described could look like a lot of things, and having a better idea of what your targets look like will help us navigate you to a place where you’ll be successful.
@raganmd - thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to engage with me on this. For context we perform music live using Ableton. My production partner has used Resolume but I’d like to incorporate some of our own visual ideas.
2 types of project I’d like to hope we can attempt are:
Collision between different components based on the inputs and noise CHOPS. Eg. circles or spheres bouncing off each other (I believe this would require some form of instancing and simulation but again I’m very much a beginner.)
Patterns using instancing that also respond to inputs.
Ultimately, I’d love to make our way toward generative ideas that so far live only in my mind as patterns. I see touch designer as a tool to break free of self limiting beliefs around design based on having poor motor skills for traditional design. Implementing simple concepts based on semi-chaotic motion is exciting to me. This may be a long way off but I am willing to do the work.
Is there a hub of simple sample projects to look at how they are structured?
Thank you for what you’ve offered! If you feel I need to look into some other resources or there is a progression.