Experimental Build 2018.21670 posted

testing the Alembic SOP - playing a 150.000 vertices Alembic animation supersmooth on the GPU at 60fps without TD breaking a sweat is supercool ! :smiley:

Yeah! And thanks for the hack for multiple versions, I was just about to ask.

It seems I have some files who don’t load at all with the new version :cry:
Just reverted but will send your way shortly.

Though yes easier would be nice. I think I’ve said it before, I like the way it’s done in Houdini, where each version is a different entry in control panel/programs and features in windows.

Excited about new GPU based SOP stuff! Volumetric Pixelmapping here I come…

Also 13460 seems to ignore the “Check for Experimental Builds” option in the preferences and show “Update” in the corner regardless. :frowning:

Thanks for pointing this out, will have a fix for next build!

Variables and storage both got SUPER FAST. Wow.

I made this awhile ago to help folks think about cook time for various referencing methods, and it’s useful for comparison:

base_exploring_cooktimes.tox (1.99 KB)

Five second average:

088
exportCHOP 0.02455
pythonExpression 0.1102

hard_coded 0.03ms
storage 0.04388ms
variables 0.049ms
exports_constantCHOP 0.0165 ms
exports_tableDAT 0.0211 ms

099 - experimental
exportCHOP 0.02208
pythonExpression 0.07012

hard_coded 0.0284ms
storage 0.01647ms
variables 0.01319ms
exports_constantCHOP 0.01384 ms
exports_tableDAT 0.0211 ms

thanks Matt for those stats.

A default Noise CHOP (nothing connected), with Time Slice On, was always 0.04. When you set its Sample Rate parameter to a constant instead of me.time.rate, it would go to 0.02. This was for many nodes the case, such as Timer CHOP, Trigger ChOP, and all nodes who use an expression in Sample Rate.

Now in build 30400 the Noise CHOP is 0.02 by default, with still me.time.rate set as expression.
Also Timer CHOP looks twice as fast.

NICE

All super exciting - nice work!

Noticed that the Python optimisations had broken a few things in my projects.

When fetching a stored value from an expression in a constant CHOP it doesn’t update when the stored value changes. If I have the same expression in a DAT it cooks and updates just fine.
storageExample.toe (3.89 KB)

The bug with storage values not updating will be fixed in 2017.30680. Thanks for the report!

This experimental build brings the new S Curve CHOP, window spanning abilities for macOS High Sierra, Parameter COMP scope menus, and Audio Device OP parameters to deal with moving your project around to various machines with different audio devices.

You can also now right-click on any component in the address bar path as a shortcut to that component’s RMB context menu.

particlesGPU component in the Palette gets an update with a Birth parameter (only available on Windows OS due to GLSL limitations on macOS)

Last but certainly not least, many bug fixes from all your reports!

Remember we are very keen to hear how your projects run in this new optimized experimental branch, so please let us know how performance compares to the Official branch.

Download

Release Notes

Loving this new S-Curve CHOP!

I can tell already, however, that I’d love a way to specify different par values when setting up multiple channels. :slight_smile:

Nice, many cool features!

Looks like some python expressions are not being executed on each frame, for example when I’m accessing a Base operator x position using this code op('/project1/base1').worldTransform[0,3].

The transform access time dependency bug will be fixed in 2017.33080. Thanks for the report.

[size=150]Build 2017.35560 posted[/size]

This update took longer than planned as we’ve been wrestling with some really pervasive bugs. But we want to share this with you for all the new features and goodies that we just can’t keep to ourselves any longer. It’s the season of giving!

Of course this is Experimental, there are bugs, known issues, and some things are a work in progress. Please give it a test and let us know what you like and what issues you find. (you can also let us know what you don’t like :wink: )

[size=150]Great New Stuff[/size]
The Movie File Out TOP now renders out image sequences in a bunch of formats (.tiff .jpeg .bmp .exr .png). (work in progress)

New Audio Render CHOP build on the Steam Audio API to help you easily spatialize audio. Simply use COMPs to position your audio sources in your 3D environment.

The Script SOP has a bunch of new python options to create and control beziers, futhermore the modelSOP Class now has access to all the same building methods as the scriptSOP Class. (documentation in progress)

Analyze CHOP now has a new ‘Duplicates’ function which tallies how many times a value is present in a channel, the sample index of the first occurrence of that value, and so on. We think this will be useful for many things, but it was initially inspired by histogram-pixel-counting desires.

Parameters can new be set to Read Only parameters. Perhaps you are designing a component and it will completely break if a user changes 1 parameter? Now you can ‘Enable Read Only’ from the parameter’s RMB menu. (work in progress)

The TCP/IP DAT now supports multiple NICs (network adaptors). Why? Because someone asked for it!

New cornerPinSOP component added to the Palette, as well as some nice updates to KantanMapper like bezier soft edges and shapeID written into UV map.

There is also a huge list of bug fixes and other improvements touching FBX, NDI, Speed CHOP, Saving TOPs, GLSL, Alembic, C++ SOP… so much! Please review the release notes for a complete list of changes.

Release Notes

Download

Experimental is coming along nicely, but we still need your help testing scenarios and existing project performance before it will be ready for Official. Please download and dive in!

Happy Holidays

Hello,
Thank you for the new update.
I particularly appreciate Audio Render TOP. I work with spatialized sound and I was trying to do complicated things between TD, Unity and Panoramix (Ircam spat app). Now all is inside TD, great future! Great Christmas gift.
Jacques

sounds great!
Ben, a few pages back malcolm wrote that we can copy experimental directory after install to its own folder and so run stable and experimental on the same machine - which is already really helpful info.

As I always need a stable version on all my machines to work on current client projects - what is the recommended way to update experimental while stable is also on the same machine? I’d love to test all these new features for you guys but not sure how I can keep up - and I heard the same question from Achim, Keith, and other TD developers who also have to keep a stable version on their machines.

If you guys could find the time to make it so experimental and stable can install next to each other - just like 088 and 099 can be installed on the same machine - you would win some extra pro-testers.

I create 2 folders on the desktop, one for Official and one for Experimental. After installing every build I copy the install directory over to the appropriate desktop folder. I also have shortcuts on my desktop pointing to each .exe so I can drag/drop a .toe/.tox to the appropriate build I want to open it with. Windows Open With… menu and installer modules are a pain to work with, not many options for us since the .exe is the same name for both Official and Experimental builds and we are currently using Advanced Installer.

macOS is so much easier - just copy to anywhere and all installed builds and their build numbers show up in the Open With… menu.

One thing that works for me is putting shortcuts to the two builds in the sendto folder :

C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

on windows10

This way you can right click/sendTo and pick your version

those are helpful hacks - thx ben & vincent

Nice! Also great that we can now save images as PNG, thanks for this

Cool! How do you select which NIC is used in the TCP/IP DAT?
Recently had a case where I wanted to send control signals over a 1GBit NIC and all heavy Touch Out TOPs / NDI streams over a 10Gbit NIC, so I would not object at all if you guys added this multiple NIC option also to the Touch TOPs & NDI TOPs in the future…

I don’t see any new options to select different formats in the NDI TOP- are these automatically selected?

Re installing multi-builds on Windows:

“After installing every build I copy the install directory over to the appropriate desktop folder.”

You can do it simpler - Where the install happens in Program Files, just rename the folder TouchDesigner099 to something else like TouchDesigner099Experimental and make a desktop link to the .exe in it. Then install some other build.