Mandala like structures for projection mapping

hello everybody once again!

i’m pretty new in touchdesigner, just a few weeks of practice. i have a little background in motion design. so, what i’m trying to do is to recreate one of my projection mapping project.

  1. How to generate a model, not the same, but similar mandala like structure. i don’t want to import from c4d. wanted to make all in TD. Played with polygonal sphere + facet and feedback, but that’s not not quite what I had in mind.

  2. here i’ve found how to highlight the edges, looks very similar, or i will just use Edge TOP and i think that’s will ok

  3. Folding - unfolding triangles - i have no idea how to :smiley:

  4. another important question - how can i split image, like in this example? i can mask everything in MadMapper for example, but i think there is a smarter way to acheive this no?

thank you for reading this =)
hope to show my final result.

in summary:
mandala like structures. how to?
spliting the image
maybe someone can just point the direction where to dig, how to think.
thank you for your time.

Hey alex,

For mandala like structures you might consider looking at the copy SOP. To give you some SOP ideas there’s a good chunk of videos in this workshop series all about sops:
matthewragan.com/touchdesigner- … yale-2017/

I know there’s a video specifically about the copy SOP here:
youtube.com/watch?time_cont … OoE62NDl-Q

When it comes to splitting the image it really depends on what you want to do - in the sample it looks like a single piece of geometry is broken into four segments - I don’t see any lighting effects applied - if you’re after re-recreating this exactly I’d think about how you do this in post and comp the pieces into boxes. Or you could tackle this in geometry like this:
base_divide_a_torus.tox (1.22 KB)

Hope that gives you a push in the right direction.

Thank you, Matthew! that’s was helpful.
I watched the Yale workshop, and started THP 494. but maybe i need to get back and watch one more time for more solid understanding.

Here is some results playing with Copy SOP. I don’t know why, but i’m always want to use Feedback TOP. it kinda make everything more alive or something like this, but usually the whole picture getting very dark, with many glitchy artifacts. So, for example, i think that Shape1 in my project is not so qualitative to project on the big screen.

i’m trying not to use colors, wanted everything in greyscale. But everything looks pretty shitty on my opinion :smiley: is there some tips how to get a better picture in my case?

another question - a wanted to make a dashed line around my Shape3. and i’m stuck. tried with a Copy SOP in a different ways, but no results. tried to add some points on my shape , because that’s was always or to much points or not enough points, tried with particles, that will represents my points, but that’s not worked.

questions:
dashed outline
how to add points to geometry?
maybe some tips on picture quality and overall improvements.

thank’s everybody! for your time and help!
shapes.2.toe (15.5 KB)

Hey Alex,

Gonna focus on your bullets:

dashed outlines - these are a little tricksy. One approach is to use a constant material and turn on wire-frames on the common page. This would give you just the outline of the geometry. Next you think about how to texture that geometry in a way that looks dashed. There’s an example of this kind of trick up here:
github.com/raganmd/td_fb_forum_ … d_line.tox

I’d probably do this differently now but it’s a place to start looking.

Add points to geometry - you can always use a subdivide SOP, or add more divisions. The catch here is that you’ll end up with expensive geometry. You’ll want to avoid animating SOPs whenever you can, and instead think about doing these operations on the geometry COMP - that’s GPU based instead of CPU based.

Feedback - you can minimize some of that extra smutz you’re seeing by changing your Composite TOP to be 16 bit (that’s on the common page).

What’s the look you’re aspiring towards when it comes to your design? There are lots of directions you could run with these, but it’d be great to have a better sense of your intention before nudging you the wrong way.

thank once again Matthew!

wanted to ask about SOP animations. that’s mean, in general, for example - if i want to animate rotation of my SOP, i need to put my SOP/SOPs in GEO COMP and animate rotation here in Geo Comp right?

Actually, i’m a bit vague, when it’s comes about “what i’m doing and what i want to end with”. Always was my problem, i know that i need to plan ahead… still learning to think that way. That’s was just a lyrical digression.

I’ve attached some images, which are interesting for me. looks like a simple greyscale with some specular in 2nd image, but when it comes to recreating i’m frustrating.
3rd picture is from my Cinema4d project , i’m trying to play with geometry in that way ( kinda folding-unfolding and etc.) it’s better maybe to watch 5-10 seconds to get a better understanding. Also i wanted to move lights and play with shadows, but my model that i’ve created using Cirlces and Copy Sop do not have a back face, so i can see through it. that’s not what i want in this case.



thank you!

Hey Alex,

Thinking about transformations - You’ve got the right idea in shape2/geo7 where all of your transformations are happening on the geometry components. That’s highly efficient. The places where it’s a little more tricky are with something like shape1/copy3 where you’re animating the copy SOP. That weights in at about 11ms for me, and would only get slower with more divisions in your circles. This is a pretty good place for instancing to help make things more performant.

When it comes to looking at complex gometry you might look over the Polyhedra Database up here:

derivative.ca/forum/viewtopi … =22&t=3046

It’s a killer touch project that’s got some beautiful geometry as well as some killer rendering. That’s well worth pulling apart to get some inspiration and ideas about where to go next.

thank you! i think that a really good idea to move forward. thank you for your time!