Five years, 400+ students. The course was never the problem — two things around it were. The Winter 26/27 edition improves both.
Access. Until now every hour was a live lesson — three hours a week of Nima teaching, questions squeezed into what was left, and many watching the recording anyway. So we flipped it: the lessons are now pre-produced videos, released weekly to the cohort, and all live time is for you — a weekly 40-minute group consultation on Zoom (first come, first served, and we say so) and, if you want it, your own weekly 1:1 slot with Nima: ten minutes of coaching, or fifteen minutes of mentoring plus a review of your files. Eight coaching and four mentoring seats per cohort — as many as one person can give real attention to.
Price. Pre-producing the lessons changes what the course costs to run, so you pay for the live time you actually want: from €240 for twelve weeks with the group consultation, two tiers above for the 1:1 seats. Same depth, more accessible than before. (Incl. VAT; Student / Professional / Company rates on the course page.)
What hasn't changed. TouchDesigner isn’t a piece of software with a finite set of features you can eventually check off — it’s a way of thinking about problems: breaking an idea down into small, connected pieces, understanding what kind of data you’re working with at each step, and building your own solution instead of hunting for someone else’s. That’s a general problem-solving skill, not a TouchDesigner-specific one, and once you’ve internalized it you’ll be dramatically faster at picking up any new technique, tool, or piece of software. Nobody ever learns TouchDesigner “completely” — it’s a lifelong practice, not a course you finish.
What this course gives you is the ability to come up with your own solutions, and the confidence to read the documentation, forum posts, and example files you’ll keep running into for as long as you use this tool. Every lesson is built around understanding, not memorizing steps.
That matters more in the age of AI, not less: understanding the logic underneath is what lets you edit what an AI hands you with intent — and push back when it's wrong.
Twelve weeks: first UI → components and custom parameters → feedback loops → 3D → sound-reactive particles → instancing → point clouds and 3D scans → POPs → texture instancing, then GLSL with Vanta and Python with Dan Molnar (Function Store). Plus a glossary and an FAQ from five past editions.
A real community. The Discord stays open after the course, and NODE is a place in Berlin — participants are welcome at the TouchDesigner Roundtable and NODE's other community events. Certificate of completion at the end; the peers you keep tend to matter more.
