My true passion in TouchDesigner is toolbuilding. Over the years I’ve worked on everything from small exhibitions to massive arena shows, so I know the challenges and pitfalls artists face. That’s why it feels so heartening to hear from people — whether it’s an artist thanking me in person for how much my tools helped, or just a few nights ago, a message from someone on the other side of the world saying they’ve been using them for their shows.
Having been in so many different situations myself, I know how important it is for tools to be reliable, intuitive, and easy to adapt. My background in nearly a decade of professional software development taught me the value of robust design, maintainability, and user experience — principles I carry into every tool I build.
In this article, I’ve collected some of my most favorite tools, along with a few underrated gems I wish more people used. Many of my tools are free and open source, because I believe in keeping resources accessible for the whole community. For those who want to dive deeper and support my work, I also share tutorials and exclusive tools on Patreon.
FunctionStore_tools - free for all
I’d like to start with what I consider my magnum opus: a collection of free workflow and user experience tools that integrate seamlessly into the TouchDesigner environment. The collection includes over 50 new features — built largely by me, but also thanks to contributions from talented community members such as DotSimulate, AlphaMoonbase.berlin, Yea Chen, Alex Guevara, and even Greg Hermanovic himself!
I’ve had the chance to talk about some of these tools and the ideas behind them on Derivative’s InSession Podcast, and it’s been amazing to see how they help people solve problems they didn’t even realize they had.
It’s a lot to dive into, but the beauty is that you don’t need to use everything at once. You can pick and choose the features you need, and I’ve optimized the system so it runs efficiently in the background without slowing down your project, and there’s a detailed Wiki plus several YouTube videos to help you get started. I also wrote about it in more detail 2 years ago here!
Below are a few of my favorites, but the full collection is worth exploring — you’ll likely find tools that change the way you work.
The Toolbar
This is where a portion of the tools live — and adding your own is simple. I’ve even made a tutorial showing exactly how to do it! Once your toolbar is filled with these buttons, you’ll never look at the TD UI the same way again. (You can also decide which ones to show or not!)
Most of these have alternate functions depending on modifier keys / clicks. Hover over them for the help popup, or Alt+RightClick to open the relevant Wiki page!
Op Templates
Save an operator’s parameter settings as presets and recall them whenever you add that operator type again. You can also save multiple operators or COMPs as templates, making repetitive setups a breeze. You can find a full explanation video here!
Custom Par Tools
Custom Parameters are incredibly powerful, and this suite makes creating and managing them effortless. Just drag a parameter onto the “diamond” button, and voilà — a Custom Parameter! Hold Ctrl while doing so to quickly customize names and ranges, just like in the standard dialog, but without menu-diving. And that’s only the beginning — check out the full feature set for more here.
Borderless TD
Every pixel counts in the network editor, so this tool hides the top title bar in Windows and the TD timeline you rarely need. Timeline state is still visible — UI elements turn red when paused — and your project name is displayed in a new UI element that also saves your project when clicked. I’m not kidding when I say I try to think of everything!
Palette Search
Created by Yea Chen, this tool was a major inspiration for me in exploring UI and behavior customization in TouchDesigner. It simply adds a search bar to the palette — such a small idea, yet it makes you wonder: why isn’t this included by default?
OpCreate Dialog Mods
Arguably the most used menu of TD, searching and placing operators. These mods encompass three new features by different contributors:
- Greg’s IO Filters: An honorable contribution from Greg (yes, the founder and CEO of Derivative), added to the Op Create Dialog to reduce clutter by filtering out less frequently used IO operators, such as sensors or 3D tracking. Why he decided to include it in this toolkit instead of the official build? That remains a mystery — but I’m thrilled to have his blessing through this contribution!
- Custom Search Words: Ever wanted to look for a Pattern CHOP by typing ramp or Math CHOP by typing add? This tool lets you add your own custom search words for any operator type easily!
- OpType Acronyms: A contribution by the great DotSimulate, the idea coming from Houdini, letting you search for multi-word operator types such as Movie File Out by typing the starting letters m f o . You can quickly get used to it!
Clipboard Image Paste
This tool was born out of a collaboration — the idea came from Lake Heckaman, DotSimulate perfected it, and I worked on the UX and integration. It lets you paste any image from your Windows clipboard (Ctrl+C, or copy image from web browser, etc.) directly into your network (default hotkey Alt+V). A beautifully simple idea — though not so simple to implement!
Color UI
This tool lets you re-color all of TouchDesigner’s UI elements, giving your favorite software a personal flair! I originally built it because the new experimental POP family was too similar in color to the TOP family, but I quickly generalized it to cover all UI elements.
Finding element names isn’t always straightforward, so I added a search and authoring feature to make customization easy. You can even share your custom looks for others to use!
I’m planning to dedicate a separate video to this tool — it’s really fun to play with.
HydroHomie
Definitely a fan favorite! Hydration is one of the most important things in the world, but when you’re tunnel-visioned into your visuals it’s easy to forget. This little pop-up icon in the toolbar will kindly remind you to drink some water and keep both mind and body refreshed.
Honestly it’s hard to stop listing these, as I said, the tools feel endless, so don’t hesitate to dive in! Got an idea, a request or a bug report? I’m all ears and also open for more contributors here!
SwitchTools and SimpleSceneChanger
These two are some of my most recent Patreon MVPs, and the positive feedback I’ve received has been incredibly rewarding!
- SwitchTools attaches to any existing switch-like operator and gives it superpowers: looping inputs, controlling cooking, managing GPU memory, coloring, rearranging, renaming — and more.
- SimpleSceneChanger is similar, but while SwitchTools only blends between consecutive inputs, this tool lets you blend between any scene using a pre-defined blending period, rather than a slider. It's akin to the sceneChanger in the palette, but with much less setup!
Both tools give you more control over multi-scene systems and help optimize performance, making complex setups easier to manage. Unlike more advanced performance tools like AAVJ or algorhythm which can require some setup and learning, these tools are simple, lightweight, and integrate directly into classic workflows.
CamSequencer / OpSequencer Preset System
The CamSequencer is an old favorite that lets you save and blend between camera presets with various easing curves, using a slider, so you can make your changes audioreactive even!
The generalized version, OpSequencer, works with any operator — ideally a COMP with custom parameters. They even include a Spline Interpolation mode, which fits a polynomial curve to your parameter changes for naturally smooth transitions.
Also available on my Gumroad as standalone purchases.
Top-To-MIDI
Visual-sonification — turning visuals into music — has been trending on Instagram, but most of the setups I’ve seen are overly complicated. Top-To-MIDI makes it easy while giving you plenty of control. Instead of being limited to a straight scanning line, you can sample pixels with any shape defined by a SOP or TOP.
It also includes built-in scales and supports live MIDI input, so you can instantly create a duet where notes react both to your visuals and to what you’re playing. Unfortunately no Mac support, but I'll be working on updating it!
Below is a demonstration during one of The NODE Institute Roundtables in Berlin (starts at 1:09:03):
Expression POP
ExpressionPOP is a freely available component for the experimental version of TouchDesigner that I created as a proof-of-concept to show Derivative my vision for doing math with POPs. I found the Math Combine POP too menu-heavy when all I wanted was a simple operation — for example, dividing two attributes — and expanding beyond that required rearranging blocks. Meanwhile, the GLSL POP demanded too much setup and memorization of special naming conventions.
This tool lets you write GLSL operations directly in a single line — I like to call it a glorified GLSL preprocessor. I hope a version of this eventually makes it into one of the official builds!
More Open Source Projects
Intech Studio VSN1 Hover Control
This is my latest project: a MIDI controller script for the Intech Studio VSN1 which is their latest product in their modular controller family. Thanks to its buttery-smooth endless encoder (allowing for relative value control), you can control any parameter you hover over with your mouse, similar to the value ladder. You can also quickly save and exchange parameters to slots (via the buttons), giving you control over 32 parameters across 4 banks. It’s the perfect companion for jamming on ideas or performing with complex patches that have many controls.
Since this is a very fresh project, the demo video isn’t out yet, but all the information is available in the repo — stay tuned for the video!
Also, every hardware and software product of Intech Studio is open source, how awesome is that?
WaveShare E-Ink Display Integration
I’ve long wanted to create a lasting birthday gift for my family that reflects my passion for art and technology. Since they live in another country, it’s been difficult to connect them directly with my work — until now. Using a WaveShare 7.3-inch 6-color E-Ink display paired with a Raspberry Pi Zero, I built a system that can receive frames from my visuals in TouchDesigner at any moment. It runs a custom web server exposed to the internet for remote image management and playlist creation, and includes an API to interface directly from TouchDesigner.
Needless to say, it made everyone incredibly happy! Here is the repo if you'd like to recreate!
TD Launcher by EnviralDesign
I always take every opportunity to highlight this essential tool by Lucas M Morgan, to which I contributed a Mac-compatible port.
If you work with TouchDesigner, you know how common it is to juggle multiple installs on the same machine — and how frustrating it can be to open a file with the wrong version. This launcher solves that problem: set it as your default .toe file association, and it will list all installed versions (choosing the correct one by default). If the version you need isn’t installed, it can even download and install it for you automatically!
Upcoming secret project: TDCollab
I am currently collaborating with TheTouchLab on a secret project codenamed TDCollab. All I can say for now is that it’s gonna be free, open-source, and set to change the way the community collaborates. You’re gonna hear more about it soon, we cannot wait!
There's always more
This is just a small slice of what I’ve shared with the community so far — and plenty more are in the works. Thankfully, the ideas never seem to stop, and that keeps me more motivated and excited than ever before.
I actively use every tool I release, making sure they stay up to date and usable with the latest releases. No one gets left behind!
About Me
My name is Daniel Molnar (Dan / Function Store), and I’m based in Berlin. I run DEREAL Studio with my friends, and I also create educational content and develop tools for artists.
I hold a master’s in Electrical Engineering and have worked as an embedded software developer, DSP audio engineer, and Python developer. What started as a desire to make visuals for my own music quickly turned into a never-ending learning journey — and ultimately a full-time passion for creating visuals, systems, and tools (without neglecting making music either; link for my performance seen in the image above)!
Over the years, I’ve gained experience across a wide range of projects, from small basement shows to immersive rooms and massive arenas, covering everything from art creation to system development. I’ve also held workshops and given talks, sharing knowledge with the community. Hear more about my journey and toolbuilding philosophy in this podcast on The Visual Cast channel!
I’m always open to new projects — and I’m happy to travel to your city! Don’t hesitate to reach out.
