Interactive Particles & Metaballs in TouchDesigner - TouchDesigner Tutorial 064

[@shana1598]

the way you explain everything is so clear and thoughtful thank you!!

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Our pleasure, glad it was helpful! :)

[@nikolettnemeth7024]

your tutorials are really the best. your comments are very useful. thank you

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

We're really glad to hear it! Thanks for watching :)

[@ithadimarco]

Great! Thanks Elburz!

[@venjsystems]

i'm gonna try this with some overhead blob tracking. great tutorial thanks.

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

That's such a powerful combo! Big companies like TeamLab and Moment Factory have been doing these kind of things for years, no reason you can't either!

[@wq6052]

Thanks for the nice and clear explanations, may I just ask if I’m using the ultrasonic sensor with Arduino to control the movement instead of mouse is it possible?

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Definitely! It's possible to send the output of the ultrasonic sensor from the Arduino to TouchDesigner via serial (or other protocol, depending on device), where it can be utilized in the form of CHOP channels to replace the mouse position control.

[@kellywarner3748]

Priceless insight, awesome and concise tutorial. Thank you!

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

You're very welcome! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@jsuth5343]

Thank you for all the explanations. Really helps get your head around it!

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Of course! Glad to hear that it was helpful :)

[@markus_knoedel]

Very fine tut. Thank you. This is going to be a lot of fun...

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Glad you enjoyed it! There's so much creative possibility with just these handful of operators! Tag us on Instagram with your experiments, we love seeing everyone's work :)

[@cloudlesssnowstudios633]

hello, how do i add a shape to it. right now its just an invisible circle. But is there a way to make it a solid circle? Thanks :)

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

One option is to set up a second Geometry COMP containing a Sphere SOP, and then control the Transform parameter of that Geo COMP with the same CHOP channels we use for the transform1 SOP in the video. This will create a sphere in the scene which is aligned to the movement of the metaball, but also allows you to make further creative decisions like scaling or modifying the geometry, as well as applying a texture. Hope that helps!

[@cloudlesssnowstudios633]

@@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ aww thank you so much for answering back. I tried this and it worked perfectly! Now I will implement it into my other project. Thanks again and I hope you have a wonderful day!

[@Jjjustincredible]

How do I change the input to a Kinect? Do you have a tutorial for that?

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Great question! You could replace the Mouse In CHOP channels with any of the positional channels that the Kinect CHOP provides. Something like the left or right Handtip X and Y channels would probably work well for this. You'd need to adjust the range of the CHOP channels with a Math CHOP to make sure that the final position of the sphere actually ends up within the emitter grid (otherwise it won't impact the particle system). Hope that helps!

[@rebeccahsu136]

Hi! How to use TOP Kinect body replace ball?How to operate? Thanks!

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

To use the Kinect to control this effect, you could replace the channels coming from the Mouse In CHOP with any of the positional channels that the Kinect CHOP provides. You'd need to adjust the range of the CHOP channels with a Math CHOP to make sure that the final position of the sphere actually ends up within the emitter grid (otherwise it won't impact the particle system). Hope that helps!

[@grodkowski]

Is it possible to have the node for GPUparticles attract? So far i've only been able to get force and metaball to work with particles SOP. (I'm trying to get kinect's depth to work so that waving their hand over a surface, will attract particles similar to metaball and force.) Also, I'd like to thank you for this tutorial and many others. They've really helped me learn a lot about how to use touch designer.

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Thanks for the kind words, our pleasure! Unfortunately you kind of have to tread into GLSL territory to effectively add your own custom forces similar to metaballs + forces on the SOP level. Have you done any GLSL before?

[@grodkowski]

@@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ Thanks for the reply! I typically work with Unity and Unreal and while I'm used to making shaders - I've never just built straight from GLSL before. (Its always node based) Do you have any recommendations on on where I might pickup the information needed?

[@Nanotopia]

@@grodkowski I've been hoping to make something similar happen- wish they had responded. Have you found a tutorial that helped??

[@grodkowski]

​@@Nanotopia Sadly no, touch designer is pretty limited in a lot of ways. And despite extensive searching we weren't able to change that.

[@VIPKA24]

Is there any way to instead of mouse, use kinect generated movement?

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

For sure! The Kinect CHOP supplies position values of the detected user(s), which you could use in place of the mouse. You'll likely have to use something like the Math CHOP as well to modify the range of the values from the Kinect

[@tengma8497]

Metaball is just can been used as a force point ， not an object or a shape ， is that right？

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Correct! The intention is to use it for forces

[@sachafinn10]

How do I multiply in TouchDesigner what sign do I use and where to find it?

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Great question! For multiplication, use the asterisk (*) symbol. On a US/Canadian English keyboard, this can be accessed by typing Shift + 8. The location may differ on other keyboard layouts, though. Hope that helps!

[@AngusMacMinn]

wow wow wow perfect tutorial once again

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@shibata_belaqua]

thank you!

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

No problem! It's a fun trick to know how to do :)

[@tientranquoc8808]

How to create multiple force for particle

[@flx-px]

Set up multiple forces (with multiple metaballs plugged into them) and plug them into a merge SOP and then plug the merge SOP into the forces input of the particles SOP

[@michaelproduction8417]

so helpful, thanks a lot!!!!!!

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

Glad to hear it! Thanks for watching :)

[@unveil7762]

Gpu particle are overrated. I mean of course in SOP we can not have milion of those particles… but the control and the precision of the interaction you can have whit SOP is a +++++++ for the workflow. Ps. Same set up can done with uv + noiseTop+ circleTop and instances :-)

[@TheInteractiveImmersiveHQ]

I wouldn't say overrated, but I agree that many people think that one is so much better than the other, but actually having both tools can be extremely useful and fun to work with.