Chapter 09

Trail of Dead

As creatives, we often go beyond the boundaries set by off-the-shelf tools. To do this, we must dig into the foundations of our art and acquire an understanding of its underlying medium. This project will uncover and take apart TouchDesigner's tooling to fit our own custom needs to create a redux of our earlier Vapor Trail project.

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And you will know us by the Trail of Dead. How do we make things that don't exist within the tools we're using? By breaking them apart and stitching them back together again.

Lesson 01

Welcome to Trail of Dead

And you will know us by the Trail of Dead. How do we make things that don't exist within the tools we're using? By breaking them apart and stitching them back together again.

As similar to the last project, we will turn out SOPs to TOPs by using a 3D to 2D pipeline.

Lesson 02

Setting up our 3D to 2D pipeline

As similar to the last project, we will turn out SOPs to TOPs by using a 3D to 2D pipeline.

We will use instancing to make a point system from scratch.

Lesson 03

Making a point system using instancing

We will use instancing to make a point system from scratch.

We have a choice here. Do we use particles or do we use points? It really depends on the outcome!

Lesson 04

Particles vs Points

We have a choice here. Do we use particles or do we use points? It really depends on the outcome!

Let's add some subtle movement to our points using a touch of turbulence!

Lesson 05

Adding CHOPs to control turbulence

Let's add some subtle movement to our points using a touch of turbulence!

We want each point to have a different color, so we can use the Noise SOP to assign each a new color!

Lesson 06

Adding a random color to each point

We want each point to have a different color, so we can use the Noise SOP to assign each a new color!

Just like on the Vapor Trail project, we can add a trail after we've rendered the points by using a feedback loop with a Composite TOP set to Over!

Lesson 07

Adding a feedback loop to get a trail

Just like on the Vapor Trail project, we can add a trail after we've rendered the points by using a feedback loop with a Composite TOP set to Over!

Sometimes, we don't want to be limited by the choices that TouchDesigner gives us. What if we want to do something else that doesn't exist in the program? Well, we can deconstruct things down to their base levels, CHOPs, and alter the CHOPs themselves.

Lesson 08

What is deconstruction?

Sometimes, we don't want to be limited by the choices that TouchDesigner gives us. What if we want to do something else that doesn't exist in the program? Well, we can deconstruct things down to their base levels, CHOPs, and alter the CHOPs themselves.

Here we take an existing system that is built on top of SOPs (surface operators) and convert it down to its base CHOPs (channel operators) and update our parameters accordingly.

Lesson 09

Adding a CHOP system

Here we take an existing system that is built on top of SOPs (surface operators) and convert it down to its base CHOPs (channel operators) and update our parameters accordingly.

By converting a Ramp TOP to its base channels using a TOP To CHOP, we can merge in extra information about the shapes which we wouldn't be able to do with other TouchDesigner operators.

Lesson 10

Adding color using a Ramp TOP

By converting a Ramp TOP to its base channels using a TOP To CHOP, we can merge in extra information about the shapes which we wouldn't be able to do with other TouchDesigner operators.

We can take this one step further by adding in other channels that can be used when we instance our geometry. Here we will make a scale based on a texture!

Lesson 11

Variation: Adding a scale based on a Ramp TOP

We can take this one step further by adding in other channels that can be used when we instance our geometry. Here we will make a scale based on a texture!

What if we want to use different shapes at the start and alter them? As we've set up a flexible system, we can change anything really quickly and easily!

Lesson 12

Variation: Adding boxes

What if we want to use different shapes at the start and alter them? As we've set up a flexible system, we can change anything really quickly and easily!

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Next: Chapter 10

Paintwork

Back: Homework 02

Ball Twist

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