Getting Started with TouchDesigner
Learning a new software application can be challenging — especially something as expansive as TouchDesigner. The benefit of having a series of tutorials is that you can pause, rewind, and replay portions of the instruction that may not make sense the first time you see it. Over the years, we’ve worked with many different kinds of people learning TouchDesigner. The methods that have worked best for following a TouchDesigner tutorial include:
- Watching a whole video through, uninterrupted
- Taking notes about what you find interesting, and what you want to experiment with
- Opening TouchDesigner, and starting the same tutorial a second time (this time following along with the tutorial)
- Before moving on to the next tutorial, taking some time to experiment with what you just learned and take some additional notes
- Taking a break by looking away from your screen to help prevent eye fatigue
Expect that any tutorial might take anywhere from 2-3 times as long as the content. For example, a 20 minute tutorial may take you up to 60 minutes to complete, and that’s okay! We’ve purposely kept the tutorials short so it is easier to work through one block of content at a time with logical topic breaks.
TouchDesigner Mutek Workshop 2017
Instructional Materials
Before we begin, there are a few important things to keep in mind that will make learning TouchDesigner easier. Below you’ll find a list of required first steps, and some recommended steps to help you prepare:
- A Laptop or Desktop – Mac or PC. Make sure you review the System Requirements from Derivative so you know you have a machine that’s TouchDesigner ready.
- Download TouchDesigner – it’s important to make sure your machine can run TouchDesigner before getting started.
- Licensing – create a non-commercial license key. The non-commercial license is free, and we won’t need anything more than this for our tutorial series.
- A 3 Button mouse – you certainly can use a trackpad while you’re working, but you’ll be much happier to have an actual mouse for working in TouchDesigner.