Animated .fbx into Particles | TouchDesigner Tutorial

This is sort of a technical introduction of how to import .fbx files in TouchDesigner and use them as a source of data. The topic is much wider though.

If you don't need a particle trail, you can avoid using ParticleGPU component. Just add SOP To CHOP after Sprinkle SOP and use it as a position data for instancing in Geometry COMP. Check out some guides or tutorials on instancing, if you're new to it.

Why should we use texture to set the position in 3D space? I guess it comes from shader programming, where texture format is widely used just as a container for other data, especially position data. Since texture usually has 3 channels (r, g, b), we can use them to store or process position (x, y and z). If you go inside ParticleGPU component, you'll see that main calculations are happening in the .glsl shader. So if you were to define the position, you have to convert it to TOP. Yes, it's not always clear visually, but you'll get used to it after some time.

Timestamps:
00:00 Importing .fbx
02:25 Extracting points and connecting to a particle system
03:40 Setting particle system parameters
05:15 Color, forces and other small adjustments
09:09 Post-processing and rotation

Link to the 3D model (which I converted to .fbx in Blender):
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/anima...

My insta:   / anyamaryina  

#touchdesigner #particles