These videos were created between 2019 and 2021 and tested on the versions of TouchDesigner available at that time. They may require minor updates or tweaks to work seamlessly with the latest releases.
Tutorials are primarily at an intermediate level, designed for users who already have basic TouchDesigner skills and a minimal understanding of GLSL.
Kinect Point Cloud
Pull a live depth cloud and render it as minimal particles or custom-shaded points.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Line MAT File + GLSL MAT File
3 Ways to Visualize Kinect Skeleton
Render joints as particles, stick-figure lines, or metaball volumes.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Voxelizing Everything
Turn any geometry or point cloud into chunky voxels—no GLSL needed.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
GLSL Vertex Shaders – Part 1
Step through setting up a GLSL Material in TouchDesigner, animate vertex geometry with sine waves, and control parameters via uniforms.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
GLSL Vertex Shaders – Part 2
Instancing fundamentals: apply vertex-shader tricks to thousands of instances and compare single-mesh vs. instanced workflows.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File + Bonus
GLSL Simple & Useful Tricks – Part 1
Handy shader snippets: manipulate a point cloud in a GLSL MAT, drive vertex offset with CHOP data, and more.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File + PointCloud Translate .tox
GLSL Simple & Useful Tricks – Part 2
Feed noise into a GLSL shader and other quick wins to spice up real-time visuals.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Creative Shading with Render Buffers – Part 1
Set up extra render targets (normals, depth, etc.) and use them for richer, code-free shading.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Creative Shading with Render Buffers – Part 2 (GLSL)
Write GLSL that taps those extra buffers for custom lighting and post-FX.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Soft Shadows Trick
Cheap jitter-sample method for convincingly smooth shadows.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Crazy Warping with Complex Numbers
Treat UV coordinates as complex numbers to bend space into mind-bending distortions.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File + Bonus
Raymarching in TD – Part 1: Defining Geometry
SDF basics and two approaches to feed geometry into a GLSL raymarcher.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Raymarching in TD – Part 2: Light & Color
Multi-light setups, reflections, shadows, and blending raymarching with the Render TOP.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Raymarching in TD – Part 3: Warping Space
Trigonometric warps, infinite repetition, gyroids, fractal deformations—push SDFs to the surreal.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
2D Raycaster – Lights & Shadows
Cast realtime 2D shadows from obstacles with distance-field tricks.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Interactive Particles & Raymarched Geometry
Let GPU particles collide with SDF shapes for tactile visuals.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
“Dinstansing” – Distance-Based Instancing
Control instance scale/color by proximity for lively, data-driven patterns.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
2D Vector Field Particles – Part 1
Build a flow-field and push particles along it for generative motion.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
2D Vector Field Particles – Part 2
Advanced field modulation, optimization, and extra tricks.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File + Bonus
Versatile Sprinkle SOP
Scatter points/objects creatively with the new Sprinkle SOP. (TD 2021.11180+ required).
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
TOP Trails
Create silky motion trails with feedback TOPs.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
God Rays
Volumetric-style light shafts piercing geometry.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Camera Displacement (“Broken Mirror”)
Warp the render pass with a GLSL distortion for fractured reflections.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Water Ripple
Interactive GLSL ripples for images or displaced geometry.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Glitches, Pixel Sorting & Data Moshing
Break video deliberately—true pixel-sorting streaks, compression artefacts, more.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Primitive SOP + Python
Programmatically deform primitives with a few lines of Python and the Primitive SOP.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Perfect Loops
Make animations that restart seamlessly using CHOP time tricks.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Generative Color Palettes – Part 1
Algorithmic palette generation and why not to hard-code colours.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
Generative Color Palettes – Part 2
Apply those palettes in raymarching, particle systems, and more.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File
SOP → TOP Conversion Trick
Re-implement geometry logic in TOPs for a 25–40 % speed boost.
▶︎ Video
🖺 Project File