Release Notes/099/2018.40000 Experimental

Build 2018.42312 - Dec 12, 2018

Hotfix for 42310 - Note this is a branch build witha few important fixes.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Work around new macOS 10.14.2 bug.
• Texture 3D TOP - Fixed a crash that occurs when using R, RG or RGB pixel formats.

Build 2018.42310 - Nov 29, 2018

New Features

• Mirror TOP - New TOP for mirroring part of an image on top of itself. (Thanks Joel!)
• Web Render TOP - Now works using Non-Commercial licences (this is still Windows only, macOS coming soon).
• Substance TOP - Upgraded to most recent Substance Designer engine, now has support for 4k textures.
• Text SOP - Added ability to extrude generated geometry. Windows only this build, next build will have macOS functioning.
• Camera COMP - Added Quad Reprojection support. This allows an arbitrary section of a render, as defined by 4 points from a SOP, to be treated as the projection plane. The contents of the quad are reprojected to fill the final output view as part of the render, resulting in a full resolution render for that sub-region of the original render.
• Search External Python Path Last added to preferences to control the order custom python module paths are searched, either before or after TouchDesigner's builtin modules.
• Geometry Viewer - Homing now works for instanced geometry.
• OP Snippets now has examples for Bullet Solver COMP and Line MAT.

New Palette

• Palette:moviePlayer - Version 17 improvements
  • Contents can adapt to any compoennt size.
  • Specify height of each control strip.
  • Movie can be behind or above controls.
  • Can now output mvspec.tox for later use with a moviePlayer in another process.
  • Improved layout and font sizing.
• Palette:kantanMapper - Improved uv mapping for adding rows and columns in grid mode, performance improvements when textures change.

New Python

• Par.exportSource - Returns the object exporting to this parameter. For example Cell, Channel, or None.

Bug Fixes and Improvements

• Oculus Rift - Upgrade to Oculus SDK 1.31.0.
• Fixed Custom Operators not working on macOS.
• Fixed a memory leak when parent cooking was disabled that effected Error DAT/MIDI In DAT/MIDI Event DAT/TCP/IP DAT/UDP In DAT/UDP Out DAT/Serial DAT
• Bullet Solver COMP - Added an 'Initialize Sim and Collision Shapes' pulse button.
• Actor COMP - Added 'Auto Initialize' parameter to automatically re-initialize when any child SOPs are changed.
• OSC In CHOP - Fixed unwanted leading "/" in channel names.
• Movie File In TOP - Fixed pre-loading not working correctly.
• Copy SOP - Fixed error that occurs in some cases when trying to stamp.
• Text SOP - Behavior on macOS is more robust now.
• Text TOP - Added support for scalable fonts and mipmap texture fonts on macOS.
• Render TOP - Removed incorrect warning about blending and alpha when using a PBR MAT.
• Fixed TD*Noise() and TDRotate* not working in geometry shaders.
• Fixed oversized 3D viewer axis characters.
• Fixed cursor updating so you no longer have to leave the panel and re-enter for it to update.
• Fixed GPU usage showing far higher usage than actually occuring.
• Fixed saving and reloading of locked SOPs containing groups.
• Fixed Shared Memory and Web Render TOP issue causing them to not work at all.
• Standardizing older parameter pages with sub-pages to not use sub-pages.
• List COMP - Fixed crash in initialize function.
• Geometry COMP - Fixed crash that can occur when turning off Instancing.
• Fixed common crash that occurs when changing SOPs and navigating around networks.
• Fixed opening/closing/duplicating pane crash.

Backwards Compatibility

• BACKWARDS COMPABITILITY WARNING - GLSL TOP, GLSL MAT - GLSL 1.20 has be deprecated on Windows (never been supported on macOS). Please upgrade GLSL shaders to 3.30 or later for compatibility with future release branches.
• BACKWARDS COMPABITILITY WARNING - $TOUCH_START_COMMAND has been removed.
• BACKWARDS COMPABITILITY WARNING - DATs named /start and /stream/start will not longer execute on file start. Use the Execute DAT instead.

Build 2018.41570 - Nov 14, 2018

Release Highlights

Unicode

• Unicode - TouchDesigner now supports unicode everywhere. This allows the use of characters beyond standard 128 ASCII characters and adds builtin text support for most of the world's languages.
  • Use unicode almost anywhere you can type a string
  • File names and file paths can now contain unicode characters
  • DATs can now accept unicode characters directly
  • Text TOP and Text SOP accept unicode characters directly
  • Parameters can now contain unicode characters
  • Python can use unicode characters where supported
  • Some parts of TouchDesigner must still use standard alphanumberic characters, such as Operator names, Channel names, Custom Parameters, Custom Attributes.

Physics

• Physics - A new group of Dynamics Components now support hard-body physics simulations using Bullet Physics Library.
  • Bullet Solver COMP - Acts as the physics simulation solver.
  • Actor COMP - Holds geometry that is acted upon by the physics simulation.
  • Force COMP - Applies forces to Actor COMPs that specify them.
  • Impulse Force COMP - Applies impulse forces to Actor COMPs, which are forces that happen in an instant.
  • Constraint COMP - Constrains Actor COMPs together in 3 ways i) Point To Point ii) Hinge iii) Slider.
  • Bullet Solver CHOP - Extracts information from a Bullet Solver COMP or Actor COMP as channels that can be manipulated in CHOPs and then fed back into the simulation using the Bullet Solver COMP's 'Feedback CHOP' parameter.

FBX and USD Support

• FBX COMP - New Component that loads FBX files as a network.
  • Allows for non-destructive updating of FBX assets while keeping network customizations.
  • No longer converts to intermediate .tog geometry format.
  • Support for lights, cameras, groups, merging geometry
  • Supports Direct to GPU
  • Separate parameter page for embedded animation control
• USD COMP - New Component that adds support for Pixar's USD file formats (.usd .usda .usdc .usdz). USD (Universal Scene Description) is a new interchange format for sharing 3D scenes and their assets between applications.
  • Allows for non-destructive updating of USD assets while keeping network customizations.
  • Imports scene materials using PBR
  • Supports Direct to GPU
  • Separate parameter page for embedded animation control
  • Other applications/platforms using USD currently include Houdini, Maya, Katana and iOS ARkit.
• Import Select TOP, Import Select CHOP, Import Select SOP - These new operators work inside FBX COMPs and USD COMPs to extract textures, animation channels, or geoemtry meshes from the imported FBX/USD hierarchy into individual OPs.

Custom Operators

• Custom OPs - Now C++ OPs you create have a new API allowing them to act like regular built-in operators. This includes giving them their own custom names and having them available in the OP Create Dialog.
• C++ DAT - The DAT family finally gets a C++ operator to create DAT Custom OPs as well.
• CPlusPlus OPs and Custom OPs now work with Non-Commercial licenses, they no longer require a Commercial or Pro license.

New Operators

• Line MAT - New MAT that provides constant shading of lines with 3D depth rolloff and color controls. Controls for line widths, line end points, drawing points, drawing vectors and arrows, and more are included.
• Audio NDI CHOP - New CHOP to receive audio over NDI. New parameter for NDI Out TOP to select audio CHOP source.
• NDI DAT - New DAT to list all NDI sources found, also has callbacks to trigger scripts on events.
• ZED TOP / ZED CHOP / ZED SOP - Adds support for Stereolabs ZED cameras.
• Lookup DAT - New DAT to lookup values between and DAT and lookup table.
• Parameter DAT - New DAT for getting parameter information from any OP. Especially useful for parameters whose values are strings.
• Process COMP - Work in progress, stay tuned for updates.
• Widget COMP - New Panel COMP that will be a base for the upcoming Widget UI system. Work in progress, stay tuned for updates.

New Features

TOPs & Rendering

• Movie File In TOP - Added 'num_decode_chunks' channel to Info CHOP to tell how many decode chunks a HAP movie is encoded with.
• Movie File Out TOP - Added 'Stop-Frame Movie' output type.
• Movie File Out TOP - Added support for outputting .gif files.
• Video Device In TOP / Video Device Out TOP - Added support for GPU Direct for Blackmagic cards.
• Video Device In TOP - Added support for AJA Kona HDMI.
• Video Device Out TOP - Added support for using the failsafe on AJA Corvid 24 devices.
• Text TOP - Added parameters to choose between text alignment using font metrics or the bounding box of the current string.
• Render TOP - Added a rendering mode for UV unwrapping.
• Render TOP - Added parameters to only render a few faces for a cube map if desired.
• Render TOP - Added support for Image Output. This gives an extra buffer of arbitrary type/size/format that can be written to using imageStore() in GLSL MATs. The results can be accessed using a Render Select TOP.
• GLSL TOP, GLSL MAT - Added 'Preprocess Directives' DAT parameters. Specifies a DAT that contains code that will be added at the start of all the compiled shaders. This is where #extension directives should go, as well as common #define values to be set for all shader stages.
• GLSL TOP, GLSL MAT - Added TD_VERTEX_SHADER, TD_GEOMETRY_SHADER, TD_PIXEL_SHADER. TD_COMPUTE_SHADER defines.
• Phong MAT, PBR MAT - Added 'Displace Vertices' parameter that will displace vertex positions using a heightmap.

CHOPs & DATs

• Speed CHOP / Spring CHOP / Slope CHOP - Added 'Per Sample' option, Shuffle CHOP not longer needed!
• SOP to CHOP - Added toggles to SOP to CHOP for Position, Color, Normal and Texture attributes. Attributes in 'Custom' have autonamed channels.
• OSC Out CHOP OSC Out DAT TCP/IP DAT UDP Out DAT - New parameter to support multiple NICs (Network Interface Controllers).
• OSC In CHOP - Added a non-timeslice mode that will only cook when receiving data.
• Pattern CHOP - Added a new type called 'Step' and new 'Step per Cycle' and 'Phase Step per Channel' parameters.
• Timer CHOP - Rewritten for optimization.
• Keyboard In DAT - Tweaked for unicode support. A 'key' is defined as the best-match ASCII keyboard key pressed. While 'character' is the actual unicode character generated.
• OP Find DAT additions.
  • Added option to show chosen filter values when combining 'any'.
  • Added new 'Incremental Update' option.
  • Added new 'Custom' combine option which allows an arbitary expression to combine filters.
  • Added new 'wirepath' column which provides a list of connected siblings to that object. Only supported for Object and Panel components.
  • Added new option 'Include Wire Hierarchy'.
• Added .csv file format support for CHOPs and DATs.

API & SDK Updates

• Updated to CUDA 9.2
• Updated to ffmpeg 4.0
• Updated to AJA SDK 14.2.0.9
• Updated ZED SDK to 2.5.1
• Updated to OpenEXR 2.3.0 for Movie File In TOP.
• Updated to Alembic 1.7.9 for Alembic SOP.
• Update FBX to 2019.0 for FBX COMP.
• Added v4.0.0 Orion support to Leap Motion CHOP / Leap Motion TOP.
• Upgraded RealSense TOP / RealSense CHOP Windows API version to 11.0.27.1384 (2016 R3). This removes support for the R200 when using this API, but adds support for Hand Cursor as well as stability improvements.

New Python

• Color Class - Added new Color class to tdu.
• Prim Class - Prim.direction returns a normalized vector pointing from the centroid of the SOP to the centroid of the primitive.
• SOP Class - Added support for SOP.center.
• Point SOP - me.inputPoint and me.inputPoint2 are now a InputPoint Class instead of a Point Class.
• Wave CHOP - Added support for .chanIndex and .sampleIndex
• DAT Class - Added findCells and findCell python methods to search cells by value.
• DAT Class functions for working with multiple rows/columns at once.
  • appendRows() - appends multiple rows to a Table DAT.
  • appendCols() - appends multiple columns to a Table DAT.
  • deleteRows() - deletes multiple rows in a Table DAT.
  • deleteCols() - deletes multiple columns in a Table DAT.

• OpviewerCOMP_Class - opviewerCOMP.isViewable(path) - Tests for potential recursion to find out if an OP is acceptable for viewing.
• UI Class - ui.copyOPs(listOfOPs) ui.pasteOPs(COMP, x=None, y=None)
• Added tdu.match( pattern, list, caseSensitive=True) -> List which returns a subset of the input list where each element matches the pattern. Wildcards are supported.

Example: tdu.match('foo*', ['foo', 'bar']) # return ['foo'] tdu.match('b??', ['foo', 'bar']) # return ['bar']

Improvements and Bug Fixes

• Render TOP / Render Pass TOP - Re-organize parameters.
• Render TOP - Added some warnings if alpha != 1.0 is detected but blending isn't enabled on the material.

• Movie File In TOP - Improved H.265 decoding performance.
• Movie File In TOP - Fixed crash that can occur when failing to open a .exr file.
• Movie File In TOP - Removed global CPU movie cache feature, it was generally not useful.
• Video Stream Out TOP - Applied hotfix to fix stack overflow vulnerability recently found in live555 library.
• Text TOP - Adjust font spacing and layout to be more Unicode friendly.
• Text TOP - Fixed some vertical font alignment issues on macOS.
• GLSL TOP - Renamed Compute Shader output from sTDComputeOutputs to mTDComputeOutputs. Old name continues to work for backwards compatibility.
• GLSL TOP - Fixed bug where output would not be set to a 3D texture/2D Array if Depth was left as 'Input' but the input didn't have depth (or there wasn't an input).

• DAT to CHOP - Add default value parameter when values not specified in DAT.
• OSC In CHOP - Fixed delayed by one when non-queued and intermittent values sent.
• DMX In CHOP / DMX Out CHOP - Removed restrictions from universes (prev. 0-15) to make it easer to work with external programs that only use a universe number.
• Audio Stream Out CHOP - Fixed issue which caused audio loss after 35 minutes.
• SOP to CHOP / CHOP to SOP - Removed the 'Animated' method fom CHOP to SOP and SOP to CHOP.
• Expression CHOP - Added me.inputVal, me.chanIndex, me.sampleIndex to the Optimized Expression engine.
• Noise CHOP - Added 'Offset' parameter to offset noise.

• Noise SOP - Added 'Offset' parameter to offset noise.
• Point SOP - Added support for many commonly used Python terms to the Optimized Expression engine for this SOP.

• Render Pick DAT - Allow Render Pick DAT to work without a 'select' column.
• OP Find DAT improvements
  • Fixed output for non-default-only, when other fields are default
  • Fixed 'Combine Filters = Any' logic.

• List COMP improvements and additions.
  • Added new attribute rowStretch. Allows for vertically stretchable rows.
  • Now updates panel values dragroll/u/v.
  • Now supports dropping of parameters, text, channels
• Perform Window now unconstrained if pointing to Panel COMP set to unconstrained.
• Added Optimized Expression support for panelCOMP.panel.<value>.val

• CrashAutoSave.toe is now suffixed with the project's filename.

Backwards Compatibility

• BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY WARNING - 'Use Startup File' .toe file preferences need to be reset.
• BACKWARDS COMPAITIBLITY WARNING - Evaluate DAT - The behavior of 'Convert Backslash Characters' has been streamlined, and only affects \\ \t \n and \r sequences. Furthermore, it will not strip quotes as it did previously.
• BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY ISSUE - Lag CHOP now uses the correct units for acceleration clamping.
• BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY ISSUE - GLSL TOP has replaced the binding/size parameters on the Atomic Counters page with a uniform name parameter.

Known Issues

• On macOS, for some languages such as Japanese, unicode character input dialog is not enabled yet. You can copy & paste unicode characters in at this time. Fix in progress.
• TouchPlayer may not be able to load movies from a unicode path.

An Operator Family that creates, composites and modifies images, and reads/writes images and movies to/from files and the network. TOPs run on the graphics card's GPU.

Quad Reprojection renders pixel-perfect perspective-correct images for flat TVs and LED panels hung at any orientation.

A Operator Family that reads, creates and modifies 3D points, polygons, lines, particles, surfaces, spheres and meatballs. Particles and point clouds are now done primarily on the GPU using TOPs.

The location of an operator within the TouchDesigner environment, for example, /geo1/circle1, a node called circle1 in a component called geo1. The path / is called Root. This path is displayed at the top of every Pane, showing which Component's network you are currently in. To refer instead to a filesystem folder, directory, disk file or http: address, see Folder.

A built-in panel in TouchDesigner that contains a library of components and media that can be dragged-dropped into a TouchDesigner network.

TouchDesigner Component file, the file type used to save a Component of your TouchDesigner project.

A CHOP outputs one or more channels, where a channel is simply a sequence of numbers (Samples), representing motion, audio, etc. Channels are passed between CHOPs in TouchDesigner networks. Channels can be Exported to Parameters.

MATs or Materials are an Operator Family that applies a Shader to a SOP or 3D Geometry Object for rendering textured surfaces with lighting.

The Graphics Processing Unit. This is the high-speed, many-core processor of the graphics card/chip that takes geometry, images and data from the CPU and creates images and processed data.

Unicode text is fully supported in TouchDesigner. Unicode can be typed into parameters, DATs, Python scripts etc. Unicode encoded text files can be loaded into DATs. File paths can include any unicode character that is legal for a file path.

Information associated with SOP geometry. Points and primitives (polygons, NURBS, etc.) can have any number of attributes - position (P) is standard, and built-in optional attributes are normals (N), texture coordinates (uv), color (Cd), etc.

Each SOP has a list of Points. Each point has an XYZ 3D position value plus other optional attributes. Each polygon Primitive is defined by a vertex list, which is list of point numbers.

An Operator Family that contains its own Network. There are sixteen 3D Object Component and ten 2D Panel Component types. See also Network Path.

An Operator Family which operate on Channels (a sequence of numbers (Samples)) which are used for animation, audio, mathematics, simulation, logic, UI construction, and data streamed from/to devices and protocols.

An Operator Family that contains its own Network. There are sixteen 3D Object Component and ten 2D Panel Component types. See also Network Path.

Any floating window that is not a Pane or Viewer.

An Operator Family that manipulates text strings: multi-line text or tables. Multi-line text is often a python Script or GLSL Shader, but can be any multi-line text. Tables are rows and columns of cells, each containing a text string.

Any of the procedural data operators. OPs do all the work in TouchDesigner. They "cook" and output data to other OPs, which ultimately result in new images, data and audio being generated. See Node.

Rendering is the creation of a 3D image with the Render TOP. Rendering is also used more generally to include the compositing (with TOPs) to generate an output image.

A sequence of vertices form a Polygon in a SOP. Each vertex is an integer index into the Point List, and each Point holds an XYZ position and attributes like Normals and Texture Coordinates.

samples-per-second of a CHOP. Each CHOP in your network has a sample rate. In contrast, the overall timeline has a Frame Rate, which is the number of frames to cook and display per second, generally your monitor display frequency, default 60.

The connection of an output of one node to the input of another node in a network. In contrast, see Link.

Hierarchy relates components with other components. There are two groups of Hierarchy in TouchDesigner. 3D Object Components, and 2D Panel Components. Hierarchies let one component to be positioned relative to another. Each group can be connected via lines between the bottoms/tops of nodes in a network, or by placing one component inside the other.

A form of DATs (Data Operators) that is structured as rows and columns of text strings.

The OpenGL (pre-2022) or Vulkan (2022-) code that runs on the GPU and creates rendered images from polygons and textures. A shader is programmed in Text DATs and referenced by a GLSL Material or a GLSL TOP. Shaders are composed of up to three parts: Vertex Shader, Pixel Shader and Compute Shader.

A text string that contains data (string, float, list, boolean, etc.) and operators (+ * < etc) that are evaluated by the node's language (python or Tscript) and returns a string, float list or boolean, etc. Expressions are used in parameters, DATs and in scripts.

A Window in TouchDesigner is a window in Microsoft Windows or macOS that contains either (1) the TouchDesigner editing interface that exists in Designer Mode, or (2) a user-created Panel inside a Window Component. The user-created windows can span Multiple Monitors borderless, or be floating windows with borders, or popups.

TOuch Environment file, the file type used by TouchDesigner to save your entire project.