The TouchDesigner Beginner Class is a twelve-week introduction for complete beginners — artists, designers, musicians, architects, event technicians, programmers — who want to learn the tool properly rather than collect tutorials. It is taught by interaction designer and visual artist Nima Gazestani, formerly Course Leader of the MA in Interaction Design at Domus Academy, and has run at The NODE Institute since 2021 with more than 400 participants.
The course starts with how TouchDesigner thinks: nodes, operator families, data types, the timeline and cook rate. From there each week builds one working piece. You build your first interactive UI with sliders and buttons, then learn to organise a growing network into reusable components with custom parameters. You build TouchDesigner's signature feedback loop from scratch and use it for generative colour and distortion, then step into 3D: geometry, cameras, lights, materials. You build a full particle system driven by the mouse and then by music, move data between operator families, and use GPU instancing to render thousands of independently controlled shapes — first audio-reactive, then as point clouds from real 3D scans. You meet the new POP operator family, built to lift the performance ceiling of everything before it, and close with texture instancing, bringing the whole course together in one "digital rain" effect. Two guest sessions give a first, real introduction to GLSL shaders (Vanta) and Python inside TouchDesigner (Dan Molnar, Function Store).
A full glossary, organised by operator family and cross-linked to Derivative's documentation, and an FAQ drawn from real questions across five past editions are included as running references. You finish with a certificate of completion, recordings and project files for at least two years, and a Discord community that doesn't close when the course does. A three-button mouse and a second screen are recommended; no prior TouchDesigner experience is required.
Lessons drop Wednesdays, group consultation Tuesday evenings on Zoom (Berlin time). 20 Oct 2026 – 2 Feb 2027, three-week winter break. Recordings and files for two years. No prior experience needed. Limited seats, especially 1:1.