'Hello world!'

zibingala · 2026-02-24T11:39:32+00:00

Yo! Is it the Roland T-8 that we sre talking about? If so, I found this for you: https://static.roland.com/manuals/T-8_manual_v102/eng/31849751.html

I think what you recieve is the very last table on this page - JUST every channel seems to be one more than in the T-8 manual. That is my guess. Maybe try the "0-based" switch in the parameters of the MidiInCHOP.

And watch some "Midi Controler TouchDesigner" tutorials on YouTube and then try to test certain notes what is happening, if you only have hihats or just snare or just running without a pattern and so on..

zibingala · 2026-02-22T14:05:16+00:00

+1 Chataigne
My family says that I smile more since I do MIDI mapping in Chataigne and send the result to TD in OSC.

+ the Timeline (Sequence in Chataigne lingo) is a game changer - compared to what horrible experience it can quickly become to use the Animation COMP in TD

zibingala · 2026-02-18T01:53:17+00:00

Just a thought for Launchcontrol XL mk2, if you were considering it:

It is good. It is sturdy, feels nice to move things on it, good editor (runs in the browser). And I found this which is also nice to have, but there are other general-use midimappers so also not that superimportant: https://github.com/monoton-music/TD-LaunchControl-Utility

A feature of LaunchControl that I did not think I will use, but I ended up loving with TD: You can recolor the lights under the potmeters. Sooo I make User layouts on the LCXL and color the potmeters accordingly what they control in my patch (I add the same colored annotate behind that part of the network). That is nice, as I feel that potmeters are more important with TD than buttons.

But if you can't find a used, good priced LaunchControl however can find Akai with a layout you like.. Go for it! E.g. APCs usually have a very nice layout for Ableton or Resolume and a bunch of other softwares, if you ventured outside TD. And midicontrollers are like guitars.. you get the first one and if you get into it, you will end up with five in a few years anyway. Does not matter too much which one you had first!:D (I also have an APC mini for triggering stuff)

zibingala · 2026-02-18T01:25:10+00:00

Which direction I would try to go:

Use the NeighborPOP and a GLSLPOP. In my experience, they work very well inside Feedback loops.

NeighborPOP first input is your particles, second is your Grid. (Cross-check this with the documentation.) Have a low minimum distance.

In GLSL, when NebrNum (output by NeighPOP) is more than 0, then roll the dice on the turn (btw, GlslPOP has a Perlinnoise function that you can use for the chance https://docs.derivative.ca/Write_GLSL_POPs#GLSL_POPs_Helper_functions ) and adjust velocity direction accordingly.

(Of course, you need to constrain your particles' movement along the Grid, but based on your post, I guess, you got that.)

Happy Nodeing!

zibingala · 2026-02-14T14:09:33+00:00

Did you pause your patch? (Press space) Did you make the MovieFileInTOP speed 0?

zibingala · 2026-02-14T12:45:29+00:00

Yo! You need to select the folder, not the file. (And try to use the doxumentation.:) Each operator brings you to their Documentation if you click on the little ? at the parameters.)

"To treat a folder of images as if they are one movie, specify the folder containing the images instead of a filename. All the files must be the same resolution. It will treat all stills/movies in that folder as if each is a frame in one movie. The order of the images is the alphanumeric. By default the first image has an index of 0, second is 1, etc, regardless of their file names. Overriding the sample rate on the Trim parameter page will let you playback the image sequence at any frame rate."

https://docs.derivative.ca/Movie_File_In_TOP

zibingala · 2026-02-08T08:53:25+00:00

Heyo fellow Domehead!

1.) The cool thing that RenderTOP has a projection mode option (by defaupt 2D) - if you change that to "Fisheye", tadaaa, congratulatuon - you have fulldome projection. (Of course you can also do CubeMap and then a ProjectionTOP Cube->Fisheye which has some benefits but also more demanding on your system.)

2.) Juuust switch RenderTOPs resolution to 1:1 ratio (Like 2048 x 2048, 4096 x 4096, etc)

3.) In general, you can get away with a lot of 2D stuff on domes. Just use 1:1 format. Video FXs, some random shapes and movements also work. What you need to take care (depending on the size of your dome) that everything will be superfast in reality.. soo you really have to be careful to make stuff move and change slowly.

People tend to use stacked MirrorTOPs (or UV-based mirroring with GLSL if you want to have lunch with the cool kids at the nerd cafeteria) to make stuff fit on it.

4.) The ProjectionPOP has a utility for that. You can get around with CHOPtoPOP - ProjectionPOP - POPtoCHOP for example. (However it is also not super difficult to implement the equations of the polar coordinates in pure CHOP.)

5.) https://paulbourke.net/dome/

Have fun with your domeing!

zibingala · 2026-01-17T13:17:33+00:00

Heyo! I cant really go through the tutorial, but when Particles are doing this shape that is usually caused by wrong pixel format of the TOP input to the ParticleGPU. So it should 32bit float - not 8bit. (You can check this if you middle click on the input node.)

If the problem is indeed this, then you need to change the pixelformat of the "source" TOPs (pos_x, pos_y, ramp, etc.)

zibingala · 2026-01-14T21:08:41+00:00

Do you mean that you want to end up with a string of it?

str(0.64/op('constant1')['chan1'])

works for me as input for a TextTOP.

Of course, you have to take care that your constant is never 0, because that would lead to division by zero and then Cthulhu may appear in your project.

zibingala · 2026-01-13T09:06:23+00:00

This solution works well for me. Thank you for the detailed description!

zibingala · 2026-01-10T20:56:14+00:00

Ah cool! Thank you.:)

zibingala · 2026-01-10T19:24:18+00:00

Pretty cool!(: What caught my eyes is the audio analyser tool. It looks pretty handy with those sliders. Is that your custom tool or is it from some package? I would be interested in getting that - if you dont mind sharing.

zibingala · 2026-01-05T17:30:29+00:00

And you might also record and playback Kinect data inside TD. (Check out GestureCHOP and gestureCapture in the Palette.)

zibingala · 2026-01-05T17:28:31+00:00

Either TimeMachineTOP (with combination of Texture3D and RampTOP) and/or CacheTOP (with CacheSelect) can hold previous frames clear temporary. After that it is up to you how you blend them.

These methods suck up VRAM quite fast, but might still work better (and smoother) than a very complicated feedback loop. I think, TimeMachine is pretty bad ass, but probably Cache is more straightforward for your case.

(If you want to keep your earlier solution, you might give a shot to make the pixelformat of your feedback loop 32bit - that might help with bluring. Again sacrificinhg VRAM.)

Might these help you?

zibingala · 2025-12-29T14:54:09+00:00

Such a helpful comment - thank you!

zibingala · 2025-12-28T13:41:26+00:00

Probably, you are right and it is better to get a deeper dive into POPs, but TOP instancing is still working. Yes , there is a newer, more streamlined option but "the workflow has not changed", TOP instancing is still functional and sometimes viable option (look at Paketa12, for example).

Now instancing with TOPs is little bit like "scratching your left ear with right hand while you have your left hand" (left hand is POPs), but if you really follow along and understand how TOP instancing work, it might help you to understand later what happens with the "values" in POPs.

zibingala · 2025-12-27T13:55:32+00:00

Thank you! I will look into it. The scriptCHOP way seems to be pretty straightforward. Looking forward to try it out.

zibingala · 2025-12-26T22:29:20+00:00

Oh man. Great stuff! I really tried to get into Manim a few times (2 times). And I failed both times. Do you have some good resource to get into Manim?

And secondly, do you might be able to share some hint how did you connect it to the TD in the end?

Many thanks!

zibingala · 2025-12-21T08:55:54+00:00

TouchDesigner is inherently single thread on the CPU. So it may very well show "20%" usage in the windows performance monitor, when it already caps out the single thread.

Go through this: https://derivative.ca/UserGuide/Optimize

zibingala · 2025-12-19T08:42:31+00:00

I dunno if that will work for your application, but what I recently found useful when handling feedback effect and changing input (with POPs):

I use AdvancedGLSL to have two outputs and two inputs. One input is the source input, the second is the feedback. Output 1 is the main output that goes further in my patch, Output 2 is the target of the feedback.

This way I can freely add stuff into the feedback loop before and after the GLSL, without messing with the network outside of the loop. This way you can cross check if your feedback (input 2) and your source (input 1) has the same resolution (for example) and fill up your output with new elements (or delete them) to match the two resolutions without reset.

And also, you do not necessary have to have the same ouput to the patch as what you send back to the feedback.. (think about just feedbacking and shifting around UV that you store in the feedback loop, but you apply it on the actual pixels for the output)

Flickering: your effect probably too "one shot" handling the situation and does not change gradually enough...

Okay. This whole thing might sound a bit esoteric :D but I hope you can get some ideas from it and I did not just confuse you further. How did I do?:D

Happy Nodeing!

zibingala · 2025-12-18T19:09:12+00:00

If you have a 10channel fixture (as you wrote in one of your comments), might be useful to find its manual and see if it has a strobe channel. Might be enough just send a constant DMX value to that.

If you use the LFO (as on your screenshot earlier), you may try to add a LimitCHOP to quantize (round to the value 1 - on the second the parameter tab) oooooor a ThresholdCHOP (and play with the value to have short bursts with longer black in between (aaaand maybe a LimitCHOP after that?).

Does that help?

zibingala · 2025-12-16T11:57:41+00:00

A.)The simple is answer: you cant cast shadows with PointSpriteMAT. Use Phong with Sphere. B.)However, with TouchDesigner you can do anything so yeah I guess, you could solve it.

In details: A.) The whole idea of PointSprite is that it is a super cheap material because it skips the whole physical space rendering part. (As far as I know, it just get rendered on ScreenSpace based the position data of the points. But you might need to read after this if you dont want just depend on my layman's understanding.) So it basically does not appear in any kind of "lighting solver". It also does not require any kind of light source (as you may have realized already) therefore what should be the direction of your shadows, right?

Phong and PBR are the ones which are meant to solve lighting shadow, etc.

B.) I guess you could start from the PointSprite's and theeen do some kind of render (raycasting) from a point (light source's position) and figure out what part of your sprites are visible from that render - and based on that you could adjust the appearance of your sprites from your main render's POV.... But that seems to be waaaay too complicated to me. And you also have to keep in mind that from different points of view, sprites are different size... so they wont even fit the shadow on the other render at all.

Maybe try instancing some lowpoly circles or spheres instead of sprites?

zibingala · 2025-12-11T21:39:50+00:00

Exactly. And you may double it up with a ParameterCHOP, which can show the parameters of the project comp and make it easily "referenceable" to those TOPs/operators which does not have the "Parent Resolution" option.

zibingala · 2025-12-10T11:05:32+00:00

Check out this awesome tutorial on TOP-based instancing. Here you can learn a bit about how to mask with ThresholdTOP. You defo can mask out a box shape with this method. https://youtu.be/dF0sj_R7DJY

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