from the people who use it every day
Real-time visuals, interactive installations, projection mapping, live performance. Start free, go as far as a mentored studio production — taught by working artists, not a curriculum written to fill seats.
Real-time, not renders
Build interactive systems that respond live — installations, performances, projection mapping.
Taught by working artists
Every instructor ships their own commercial and gallery work in TouchDesigner.
Any level, one path
Free introduction through to a mentored studio production — pick up where you actually are.
A real community
Berlin meetups, festival workshops, a forum that answers back — not just a video library.
Your TouchDesigner Learning Path
From a free three-hour introduction to a mentored case study. Every step stands on its own — start where your skills actually are, and see exactly what comes next.
TouchDesigner Learning Path
Free Introduction
Three hours of recorded material, free and open to everyone, to see what visual programming feels like before you commit. No prior knowledge needed — just a three-button mouse and curiosity.
Beginner Class
A video course paired with live sessions: twelve modules built around small, playful example programs, plus live group consultations and one-to-one feedback on your own assignment.
Intermediate Class
For patchers who can follow a tutorial but want to understand how the program really works. Condensed best practice from working instructors, with components and example files you can drop straight into your own projects.
Professional Modules
Professional Module
Specific tools, skills and applications — short, standalone deep dives. Take one, take several, in any order.
01
Foundations
How the tool actually works. The concepts, the vocabulary and the operators you will keep reaching for, explained before the shortcuts.
02
Advanced
The techniques professionals rely on under pressure — performance, structure and the workarounds that only come from real projects.
03
Case Study
One or more complete builds, start to finish. You leave with the project files and a method you can apply to your own briefs.
Modules run one, two or three weeks — on their own or combined into a bundle. Since Summer 2026 every new module follows the pattern above: Foundations, Advanced, Case Study(s). The first one built this way is the POPS Bundle, Summer 2026.
Creative Masterclasses
Mentored Case Study
One real brief, start to finish, with an instructor alongside you. Ends in a piece you can show — and the intermediate-level certification if you meet the criteria.
01
Foundations
Concepts, tools and workflows, taught through lectures and demonstrations. Low barrier, larger group, recorded — and bookable on its own.
02
Artistic Development
A cohort of 8–12 develops original projects on the knowledge from Chapter 1, with mentoring and critique between sessions.
03
Presentation & Refinement
A studio or venue intensive: first screening, group critique, technical refinement, then a final presentation or public showing.
Book Foundations alone, Chapters 2 + 3 by application, or the complete bundle. We run the final chapter together with actual venues, so the work meets the hardships of reality and you learn how to navigate them. You leave with your piece documented running in the venue as a proof of concept, with contact to peers, future collaborators and the people who run those venues, and with a portfolio piece.
Learn online, meet in person
Online courses are the backbone — but we think real progress still happens face to face.
In-person workshops at festivals
We regularly run live workshops in collaboration with international festivals — most recently TD Sessions India — hands-on sessions built around the venue itself, not just a recording.
The newsletter is the best way to not miss the next one — we announce every upcoming festival workshop there first.
Community meetups in Berlin — and beyond
Regular meetups in our Berlin studio, and occasionally elsewhere, to complement the online courses with the in-person exchange we think actually matters — most recently the 37th TouchDesigner Roundtable.
Talks from past meetups are on our YouTube channel — every session we’ve run is there.
Get started in three steps
01
Check the docs
Browse Derivative’s website and showcase to see the range of work made with TouchDesigner, then their Getting Started guide.
02
Download and install
The free version is limited but plenty for learning. Save $200 on your first license if you’ve spent $600 on our courses.
03
Pick your path
Free and low-quality resources both exist in the wild. We work only with instructors respected across the community.
History of TouchDesigner
Watch an interview with Derivative founder Greg Hermanovic
The company behind TouchDesigner, Derivative, was founded in 2000 by Greg Hermanovic, Rob Bairos and Jarrett Smith in Canada. Its roots go back to the PRISMS software developed at Omnibus Computer Graphics in Toronto, Los Angeles and New York from 1984 to 1987. When Omnibus collapsed, PRISMS was purchased from the liquidators by Kim Davidson and Greg Hermanovic — the inception of Side Effects Software.
Side Effects developed and licensed PRISMS until 1998; it was used in over 200 feature films and won its first Academy Award that year. Houdini emerged in 1995 as Side Effects’ next-generation product and remains central to the visual effects industry — earning a second Academy Award in 2002, with 300+ further feature films made with it since.
Greg Hermanovic spun off Derivative in 2000, starting from Houdini 4.1, with a mission to build a real-time 2D/3D interactive animation product suited to any form of interactive art, media or visualization. TouchDesigner’s first generation spanned versions 007 to 017 from 2002 to 2007. The 2008 rewrite, TouchDesigner 077, introduced fully procedural GPU-based OpenGL compositing and a new interface — the foundation today’s TouchDesigner 099 still builds on.
From the community, for the community
Our education program was created with two goals: at a time when very few resources existed, to bring courses from some of the most advanced users to the community — and to help those community contributors make a living doing what they love, sharing their knowledge.
The landscape of TouchDesigner education has evolved since, for better and for worse, but we remain committed to supporting the community and welcoming new talent into visual programming. We believe strongly in online education, but also that nothing replaces in-person encounters — which is why a real part of our work goes into community events and in-person workshops, often with international festivals.
We don’t believe in competition — we believe in collaboration. Growing together and supporting one another is how this community has always worked, and the past decade has proven that time and again. So when you learn TouchDesigner here, remember: you are not alone.
Ready to start?
The TouchDesigner Beginner Class — Winter 26/27 — just released, open to enroll!