Instancing with CHOPs

Overview:

Channel operators are a great way to work with instancing data, and are one of the most intuitive ways to understand how instances work. In earlier versions of TouchDesigner, CHOPs were the only operator family that could be used to instance data. 

When driving instances with CHOP channels we can see some direct relationships between our instanced data and our instances. A CHOP channel typically describes an attribute we want to control, e.g. the TX of a given instanced piece of geometry. Each sample in our channel correspondence to a unique instance. Therefore, a channel with 100 samples will produce 100 instances. 

Pattern CHOPs and Trail CHOPs are handy operators to use when working with CHOP workflows for creating instances. The Pattern CHOP has a number of shaping parameters that can be used for creating variation, and can also be used to quickly produce ramps (often useful if you need to create an index for looking up other samples). The Trail CHOP is an excellent operator for collecting data over time. This FIFO (first in first out) style buffer is excellent for creating trails of previous positions, or collecting data that can be used for larger general analysis.

• Instance Page – Derivative Wiki
• Pattern CHOP – Derivative Wiki
• Noise CHOP – Derivative Wiki
• Trail CHOP – Derivative Wiki