TouchDesigner

Operators

TAB to open the operator Window (TAB again to go trough the tabs)

• Components (COMP)
  Patcher, Camera, light
• Texture (TOP)
  Image File, Video treatment, 2D (Mainly GPU)
• Channel (CHOP)
  Modulation
• Surface (SOP)
  3D Environment (Mainly CPU)
• Material (MAT)
• Data (DAT)

For each family
Darker Shade : Generator
Lighter Shade : Filter

Cable
Cable can only be plug between objects of the same family When they are animated, they are streaming data (cooking)

Links
Links are grey lines with moving arrow They can be between different operator family

To render and SOP to TOP (going from 3D to 2D) You'll need 4 elements

• COMP Geometry (What is the form)
• COMP Camera (Where is the eye)
• COMP light (Where is the light coming from)
• TOP Render

Input your SOP Composition in the Geometry (For this you need to add the geo by right clicking the output of the SOP) Chose where is the light coming from by tweaking the light parameters Chose where the "eye" is by tweaking the Camera parameters

Modeling Leaf

Create a line, Bend it and Mirror it

• Add SOP line object
• Add CHOP Pattern Object
  • Rename it's channel to shape
  • Add CHOP null terminaison
• Add SOP chopTo after the line
  • drag&drop the null in it
  • Set the Channel Scope to shape
  • Set the Attribute Scope to P(1) (We want only one axis to be affected)

You should have an error on the chopTo, it is caused by the difference of point in the line and in the pattern

• Add a CHOP constant
  • Rename it's channel to segments
    • Set it to 30
  • Add a CHOP null terminaison
  • Toggle view mode on the null (bottom right "+" button)
  • drag and drop the null to (CHOP Reference)
    • The length of the pattern
    • The number of point of the Line

The Pattern and the line should now have the same number of point and a sine should appear in the chopTo (If not, verify that you are looking at the right axis)

We now have a way to bend the line, let's custom the pattern to have a more leafy shape

• Set the pattern Type to Ramp
• Set the pattern Right Taper to around 0.2 to bend the function
• Toggle the revert button to rotate the leaf toward the origin

Once the half of the leaf have the correct shape, we can double it

• Add a SOP Copy After the chopTo
  • Set the Number Of Copy to 2
  • Set the Ry Scale to -1

To fill the frame, you can use skin or polypatch, polypatch allows for more precise control of the 3D geometry. To see the modification you can use the w shortcut to toggle the wireframe view.

• Add SOP Polypatch after Copy
• Add SOP Attribute Create after Polypatch
  • Toggle Compute Normals

Tweaking

Interesting parameter to tweak to go closer to a flower petal : Pattern Taper Decay & Amplitude, disable the reverse Play around by using the math chop and adding modulation, for an oak leaf, you could add sine and noise to alter the edge of the model

To Gain More Control, After the Attribute Create

• add a SOP Twist that let you bend and twist the model
• add a SOP Transform That let you rotate and resize the model

Multiply Petal to make a flower

• Add SOP Copy after the Transform
• Add a SOP Circle , terminate it with a SOP Null and connect the Null to the second input of the Copy Copy will add a flower at each normal of the circle, to see the normals of the circle, right click and select display setting, you can then show the normals

We need to point the normals in the right direction

• Add a SOP Point before the Null
  • Set Keep Normal to Add Normal and set click + juste below to unfold the parameters
  • Set nx to me.inputPoint.x
  • Set ny to me.inputPoint.y
  • Set nz to 0

Now leaf should be facing outward If the normals aren't correctly sized add a facet before the the null and toggle Make Normals unit Lenght

The Number Of division of the Circle let you set the number of petals,

• Add a transform before the Null
  • Uniform Scale let you resize the circle, thus setting the spacing between the Petal
  • Set RotateX to 90