If you’re reading this, you’re probably a fan of Elburz Sorkhabi and his work. That makes two of us! Elburz and I are always trying to find ways to collaborate and get into trouble, but we’re often on other sides of the world from one another. We thought it would be fun to do some guest blog posts for each other’s readers. So today you’re in for a treat with a guest post from Elburz himself! If you like a little variety in life, give Elburz blog a read over at Elburz.io.
TouchDesigner is a feature-rich software. It can be daunting for new users what they should be learning and what they’re missing in their toolbox. I thought it would be nice to share two TouchDesigner tricks that are easy to learn and will provide you a lot of value over your career. Some of these things can even evade experienced users as they come quickly in new updates and over time it can be hard to keep track of them all. With that said, let’s dive in!
Custom parameters
Custom parameters are one of the best features to come to TouchDesigner in the last few years. I use them all the time. Sometimes I use them to wrap complex functionality inside of a component while providing easy to use controls. Otherwise I use them for more architectural elements of a project, such as creating internal APIs. The great thing is that any kind of parameter type already available in TouchDesigner can be used for your own custom components. One thing to note is that you can only add Custom Parameters to COMP operators. The first step is to make a COMP, which usually will be a Container COMP or Base COMP, and then right click on it and select Customize Component…
This will open the Component Editor. In this window you can do things like make new extensions, and more importantly for us, this is a visual way to create Custom Parameters. The next step is type a name in to the top-left string field that will be used to name the new parameter page. Then go ahead and click Add Page. I use names like Settings or Controls for my parameter pages. You can confirm everything worked by checking the parameters of your COMP and looking for your new parameter page. It’ll be blank for now.
The next step is to start adding parameters to our new parameter page. Click on the parameter page you just created on the left side of the Component Editor. Now you can enter a name for the parameter you’re about to create in the second string field. Then we’ll go ahead and use the drop down menu to choose the type of parameter you’d like to create. Like I mentioned earlier, you can create any of the existing types of parameters including pulse buttons, toggles, colour pickers, file/folder selectors, and more. The drop down menu to the right of the parameter type has numbers from 1 to 4. These numbers represent the amount of value parts for parameters such as floats and integers. Parts can be thought of as the “amount” of values, for example if you make an integer with 3 selected, you’ll get an integer parameter with 3 separate integers, similar to an RGB parameter field. For this example, let’s select Toggle, name it Toggle Button, and click Add Par. You’ll immediately see the parameter appear in your parameter window as well as the component editor.
That’s it! That’s all there is to making custom parameters. The process is the same for any type of parameter, you just have to choose what you want from the drop down menu. How to use the values is our final step here, but it’s also quite easy.
The quickest way to access the parameter values of a COMP are to use the Parameter CHOP. When you drop one inside of the COMP, by default it’ll already be setup to show you only the values of your custom parameters. For most parameter types, it isn’t any more complicated than using these CHOP channels as you would any other channels for referencing.
For the parameters that hold non-numeric data, such as the file/folder selectors or string fields, you’ll need to access the data through some simple Python scripting. In this case, we can place a Parameter DAT right next to our Parameter CHOP. In the OP parameter enter .. which will select the parent container, for the Parameters enter *, and finally turn off the Built-In button. The Parameter DAT has callbacks like many of the other Execute type of DATs in TouchDesigner. This means that it has different functions where you add your code based on triggers. To access our same toggle button via the Parameter DAT we could add this under the onValueChange() callback:
if par.name == "Togglebutton":
print(par.val)
This would parse the different customer parameters by name (par.name), find the toggle parameter by it’s scripting name (Togglename – the name you see when you click on a parameter and see it’s second name in the expanded area), and then prints it’s value (val).
Operator snippets
I’m still surprised to this day by how Operator Snippets isn’t talked about every day by new users. It’s the most helpful resource added that can help you learn how to use just about any operator. Operator Snippets is a project file that is built into TouchDesigner that contains tons and tons of examples of how to use operators. It’s similar to Max MSP’s examples per node.
There are two ways to access them. The first is to click Help in the top menu and then select Operator Snippets. This will open up a new window. The left side of the screen looks similar to the OP Create Dialogue (the menu when you double click on the network background) and allows you to choose which operator you want to find examples for. Underneath the operator selection area are a handful of big buttons with different names. Click on one of these changes between the different examples for the operator you’ve selected. On the right hand side of the window is the network area with the example in action.
The great thing about Operator Snippets is that the example is a live network running in real-time! You can copy the example, paste it into your project, and then tweak it to your needs. How useful it that?
Wrap up
These two tricks may sound simple but they are game changing. Being able to make your own custom parameters quickly and easily is game changing. You can make complex components that can be easily used by anyone or implemented into your own projects and controlled easily. Operator Snippets give you the greatest documentation you could ever ask for: live networks running in real-time. I bet if you spent a little bit of time just browsing the snippets, you’d find awesome little examples you’ll be eager to copy and paste into your next project. With that said, enjoy these two beginner tricks and happy programming! And if you’re interested in more content like this, check out elburz.io
Matthew Ragan 