Hi also tagging enteleform 1001

[mortal cloud]

I think you can make great work with any tool if you learn it well. Also kinda depends on what your goals, priorities, and preferred workflows are. I'm currently focusing more on TD, as IMO it seems like a faster track to getting up & running with AV sets. Definitely still have interest in Unity/Unreal and would like to spend more time with game engines at some point.

Was just looking at comparisons between TD & VVVV yesterday and came across this article which has some good points:

https://thenodeinstitute.org/courses/introduction-to-visual-programming-with-touchdesigner/lessons/what-is-touchdesigner-and-why-should-i-use-it/

Much of what TouchDesigner and the most similar tool VVVV can do for you can be done by game engines like Unity and Unreal nowadays. They support a lot of high level user interaction (walk up the stairs, grab the gun) that would be super difficult to program in a node based environment. So why choose TouchDesigner?

What sets TouchDesigner and VVVV really apart is their ability to interweave digital media with the real world. It is easy to control lights and lasers on a stage in sync with music and several projections. That wouldn’t be an easy thing to do in a game engine. You could achieve similar results with a VJ software like resolume, but you couldn’t at the same time generate and render high resolution realtime 3D content, based on what some viewers were selecting on their mobile devices or on the newest updates of the weather channel.

[verbal harness]

In my experience vvvv/TD are stunted tools failing to achieve many of the things easily that unity with a capable developer does way better/faster. BUT for vvvv/TD and even unreal nowadays you don’t need these competent devs. TD and vvvv are terrible for truly interactive stuff that goes beyond what a kiosk or art installation app would need.

vvvv/TD live in a niche of single-installation, non-secure, just-throw-more-hardware-at-the-problem space.

Most of the competent vvvv people I know would be amazing if they weren’t held back by their tools

[mortal cloud]

terrible for truly interactive stuff that goes beyond what a kiosk or art installation app would need

What if a kiosk or art installation is the goal? Or some other project which TD/VVVV/etc is well suited for (in my case - just wrapped up a live looping music performance set with MIDI/audio/multi-sensor reactivity, and TD was an excellent fit)

Any one app is inherently going to excel over another in different contexts, as the software is purpose-built for particular workflows & use cases. Unity definitely isn't the end-all of every possible use case, as it's heavily game-centric and thus comes with the accompanying baggage & overhead, so there are always going to be cases where <insert framework here> is a better fit.

"Truly Interactive" is too vague of a criteria IMO. At the end of the day we're just talking about signal (controller, sensor, audio, etc.) reactivity, and all of these platforms have the means to utilize these signals in interesting/creative ways.

[verbal harness]

what they basically are: a tool for people who don’t want (or aren’t allowed) to learn how to do stuff properly. it’s certainly not any less complicated either way, it’s just self deception that dataflow is easier once the immediate feedback threshold that is do fun in the beginn has been left behind.

I find dataflow to be effective in a narrow space where all of your nodes still fit on a screen or two and you use it on one, well-defined level of abstraction to glue together premade, relatively high-level components that don’t need to be reviewed by others.

[mortal cloud]

do stuff properly

Highly disagree with this sentiment. In general, across all fields. It's like someone saying classical music is the only "proper" music. Jazz is cool too. So is metal/electronic/etc. Absolutist/traditionalist prescriptions don't leave room for exploration and innovation.

There are both hobbyists and teams of professionals using all of these tools, for anywhere from small to large scale projects. Context, resources, and priorities have to be taken into account in determining whether a tool is viable/optimal for a given project. If you have a specific project scope and target audience in mind, well then sure maybe the argument for Unity being the best choice is applicable, in that specific case. But there are infinite project scopes and target audiences, so how can one say that <x> tool is the best for the job without knowing the details? If Unity was the hands-down winner in all cases, nothing else would exist.

[astral remnant]

I plan to Spout TD to Unity, but i haven't even tried TD
It seems to do more than it seems. It's got uhh, 3D space in it too?

When i played in the festival, seeing the difference between my setup and theirs, my goal is more for theatrical performance
U know, in a play, there are some actors who plays the prop trees, coming in n out of the stage
And if they want visual effect of a vortex, well they gotta use some ropes, attach some art-y papers on it and wiggle it around
My auvis would handle all that, and incorporate motion sensors too eventually

These are very different to what the other VJ were doing. Their effects are more "uniformly distributed" looking, generative art, and they fit it to the projected surface of the stage that has certain shapes, "framing" the stage etc

This is an early version
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1860353753

So i approach it with the concept of "Characters", which would eventually be the band members in music jamming, or actors in a theatrical play
Each chara holds a set of effects, dealing with their own isolated audio signal
A chara can also affect parts of other chara's fx for added interactivity between the characters

Unfortunately i haven't had the chance to play with multi track in a gig. Always had to figure out the audio mixer and install their drivers (and often fails), then gotta fallback to laptop mic, etc...

But well i'm just starting

[astral remnant]

I still dont know about Unity better at TD at generative art/shader
Their node stuff updates instantly. Playing around with node connections live on stage is fun and a performance in itself, and that's just not possible with Unity (VFXG updates takes some while and holds main thread.. Shader updates turns cyan while it compiles)

Other than keijiro, I'm also taking inspiration from Ke Jyun Wu and Emil Carlsen
https://vimeo.com/598342481
Currently trying to recreate this Digiscape Forest but also with audioreactive twist

[verbal harness]

Dude, I’m not saying plain unity is better at the thing TD was made for. I’m saying a lot of people only know TD and use it for stuff that are clearly outside it’s comfort zone and THAT is making their life hard and limits their potential.

Unity is obviously not a tool with lots of readymade solutions to common problems that are easily combinable without code. And it’s also not intended for live editing without building that live editing g functionality yourself.

However, you could recreate all of TD with unity. You can’t recreate unity with TD. Not that this is a relevant consideration for someone looking at TD/unity for a specific project, they are just completely different beasts. If you base your career specialty on one tool/skillset. Learning to code with text allows you to use the full power of programming and all irs very highly developed tools and carry you much further and keep you flexible when demand/tech/taste/business changes, which is what I mean by ‚proper‘.

It unshackles you from only ever using stuff others have prepared for you. But it’s still up to everyone individually to want or need that.

[astral remnant]

Yes agree with these points

Anyways i'm always up to see more Unity uses for these live performances

It's a lot of freedom yes and it's really important to get inspirations. I often get lost on what to make next
That and also i always prefer to make the technical stuff/tools and not enough actually making art/design out of it. Like, even a simple of finding texture and composition i get lost..