(y) Ready-to-Open Projects

Three small, self-contained .toe projects that open and run with no external assets, plugins, or hardware. Built and verified in TouchDesigner 2025.33060 on macOS: each file was opened fresh, played for 300+ frames, and checked for operator errors (zero found). Every project has an about Text DAT inside explaining the patch, and comments on the key nodes.

Download a .toe, double-click it, and press play. The interesting output is always in the final Null TOP inside /project1.

NeonFeedback

File: NeonFeedback.toe - TOP feedback loop, 100% 2D

A dot traces a Lissajous curve while a classic Feedback TOP loop recycles the previous frame with a slight zoom, rotate, opacity fade, and hue shift, so the dot leaves spiralling rainbow trails. This is the foundational pattern behind most “infinite trails” visuals.

Key ideas: TOPs, the Feedback TOP target loop, driving parameters with absTime.seconds expressions.

Things to try: raise transform1 scale for a faster spiral, lower level1 opacity for shorter trails, change the circle’s speed multipliers.

TorusBloom

File: TorusBloom.toe - minimal 3D render pipeline

A torus displaced by an animated Noise SOP, shaded with a Phong material, lit by two colored lights, rendered by a Camera + Render TOP, then finished with a cheap bloom (wide blur added back on top). This is the smallest complete 3D pipeline worth memorizing: SOP → Geo COMP → MAT → Camera/Light → Render TOP → post.

Key ideas: the render pipeline, SOP displacement, blur-and-add bloom.

Things to try: noise1 amplitude and period inside geo1, the light colors, blur1 size.

InstanceField

File: InstanceField.toe - GPU instancing driven by CHOPs

A 28×28 grid run through an animated Noise SOP becomes rolling terrain; a SOP to CHOP converts the point positions into tx ty tz channels, and a Geometry COMP instances one small box per sample: 784 boxes in a single draw call. Instancing is the workhorse technique behind almost every large-scale TD piece.

Key ideas: CHOPs, geometry instancing, SOP↔CHOP conversion.

Things to try: grid rows/cols (instance count), noise amplitude, box size, or insert a Math CHOP after null_pos to scale the terrain.

Self-check DAT

Each project contains a ci_check Execute DAT used for automated verification. It is inert unless the TD_CI environment variable is set; you can delete it freely.