Touch Designer Tutorial - Noise Displacement Effect
In my previous blog about why I decided to embark on the journey to become a professional digital artist, I produced animated digital artwork through the blog, showcasing a TouchDesigner experiment that used the noise and displacement TOPs to create an interesting contour effect. The project was sort of a happy accident in a way, as I intended to create a contour effect and came across something that was sort of unexpected. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy using TouchDesigner as there is always something unexpected to discover.
Noise TOP
Start with a Noise TOP, set the Period to 2, Harmonic to 0, Harmonic Spread to 1.2, Harmonic Gain to 0.12, Exponent to 2, Amplitude to 2, and Offset to 0.2. Then click on the Transform tab and use a Python expression on each of the X, Y, Z channels on the Translate to “absTime.seconds/10”. This will provide some type of revolving animation to the visuals using automation.
Null TOP
Here we can connect a Null so that we can set this as our background. This is an important workflow step, as it allows us to leave this as our destination and insert different operators as experiments without constantly having to reset the background. This simple TOP which costs nothing in terms of GPU and CPU computer power, can save us a lot of time and headache. From here on we can insert channels between the start and finish.
Edge TOP
Then connect an edge TOP to create the contour lines, by setting the Black Level to 0.1, Strength to 10, Sample Step to 10 x 10, and the rest leave as default.
Then connect another edge TOP to further accentuate the contour lines, by setting the Black Level to default 0, Strength to 10 and the rest leave as default.
Slope TOP
From that connect a Slope TOP and set the Red channel to Vertical Blue, Green channel to Horizontal Green, Blue channel to Horizontal Alpha and leave the Alpha and Method channels as default. Then set the Zero Point to 0, and then Strength slider to 4. Then the sample step should remain as default also.
Constant TOP
Then separately add a Constant TOP and select the colour of your choice, however I am going to choose a light blue, because we love CYAN around here.
Composite
Then by using Composite TOP, connect the previous Slope and Constant TOPs to this Composite TOP, so that we blend the visuals but maintain some colour control with the Constant colour. Set the Composite TOP to Chroma Difference or whatever you would like.
Level TOP
Then from the Composite TOP attach a Level TOP to play around with the visibility of display, however all I needed to change was the Gamma, by setting that to 3.
Noise CHOP
Then separately bring in a Noise CHOP which we are going to use to further animate the visuals. Set the Type to Hermite, the Roughness to 0.25 and leave the rest as default.
We need to somehow use this noise information to provide the Noise CHOP however we will need to convert this data into Texture operated data. We can do this by using a CHOP-to TOP, and set the reference to the same name as the Noise CHOP to connect the data.
Displace TOP
Now that we have the noise data converted into a TOP and we have visuals from the Level TOP we can connect these two into a Displace TOP which will use the noise data to warp the image.
Set the Horizontal Source to None, the Vertical Source to Red, Source Midpoint both to 0.5, Displace Weight to 0 by 0.01, and then leave the rest as default apart from the Extend which you can set to Mirror.
Movie File Out TOP
Here we have our finished visual animation, and you should be at the Null operator we set up at the start. Definitely play around with settings and create your own art, this is for you to take and add to.
If you are at the point where you are happy with your creation and want to export this as MOV file, then use a Movie Out TOP after the Null and you will need to real time record the animation so that it writes the movie file to your specified destination.
Final thoughts
Using TOPs are a powerful method of creating visuals in TouchDesigner, as they are relatively lightweight on GPU compared to using many different TOPs. I was able to create this effect using my laptop rather than my computer, so for the little amount of operators you can get quite a lot of bang for your buck.
If you would like to download this file and use it for your own experimentation, please do so in the link below.
If you would like to discover more touchdesigner and audio-visual tips and tricks, definitely subscribe to my email newsletter where we can keep you updated on information and future live exhibitions.
