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Summary
For many TouchDesigner users, TOPs feel like a black box: displacement behaves unpredictably, feedback spirals out of control, and compositing networks quickly become unmanageable. The result is hours spent tweaking without clarity on why things work or don’t. Without a framework for how image data flows and how operators interact, progress often stalls at the level of surface experimentation.
In this 4-hour workshop, Dylan Roscover will demystify TOP-based workflows. You’ll develop a clear understanding of the essential operators, learn how and why they are combined into common recipes such as reaction diffusion, fluid-like motion, and paint drips, and practice designing compositing pipelines that remain organized, efficient, and real-time. The workshop emphasizes transferable methods: how to approach feedback loops systematically, how to structure networks for scale, and how to refine outputs with professional-quality TOP pipelines. By the end, you’ll feel more able to design your own real-time visual systems and can begin to build a recipe book of effects and workflows that can be applied to installations, motion graphics, and live performance contexts.
Instructor
Dylan Roscover, The Experiential Company
Course Contents
- TOP Essentials & Compositing Fundamentals Understand how data flows through TOPs, including alpha handling, pixel blending, and layering with the Composite and Matte TOPs. Learn to build compositing structures that remain clear and maintainable even as they scale.
- Displacement, Noise & Slope Techniques Work with the Noise TOP to create structured and animated textures. Use displacement mapping to distort and evolve images, and apply slope analysis to detect and manipulate pixel-level changes.
- Feedback Systems & Visual Recipes Construct stable feedback loops and extend them into recipes for fluid-like motion, dripping effects, glass textures, and cellular patterns. Emphasis is placed on how to design iterative processes that remain controllable and reproducible.
- Reaction Diffusion & Advanced Compositing Learn the principles of reaction–diffusion systems, from initialization to animation. Apply production-oriented post-processing including glow, film grain, hue/curve adjustments, and edge treatments to deliver polished, presentation-ready outputs.
- Capstone Build: Matte Transition Project Bring together masking, displacement, feedback, and diffusion into a sample project. The capstone demonstrates how individual techniques can be composed into a cohesive system including building two content pieces based on reaction diffusion and feedback effects as well as a matte-based transition system.
Course Benefits
- Operator Mastery: Build professional fluency with Noise, Displace, Slope, Feedback, Matte, and Composite TOPs. Instead of memorizing tricks, you’ll understand how each operator transforms data, what its limitations are, and how to combine them into predictable systems.
- Structured Workflows: Learn a methodical approach to image processing and compositing. You’ll know how to set up networks so data is flowing in a clear, logical order, making your work easier to debug, hand off, and scale in production environments
- Effect Recipes You Can Reuse: Gain a library of repeatable techniques for building effects such as reaction–diffusion, dripping paint, cellular textures, and fluid-like motion. Each recipe is broken down into its component parts so you can adapt them to new creative or client requirements.
- Production Integration: Move beyond raw experiments into outputs that are presentation quality. You’ll practice color adjustments, glow, film grain, and edge treatments so your results look polished, consistent, and ready to integrate into a professional pipeline.
- Creative Range Expansion By mastering these core techniques, you’ll have the tools to move beyond canned effects. You’ll be able to design original, bespoke visual systems – opening up creative possibilities in performance visuals, experiential installations, and generative art.