The Beginner Class taught you to think in nodes. This one teaches you to ship.
The Beginner Class runs on playful exercises — one way of thinking per week, on screen fast. That’s how you learn the tool. It isn’t how the tool gets used. A real project needs a camera and a particle system and a state machine and a clean way to swap the content the client sends on the last day. The Intermediate Class is that shift: from visuals to applications — inputs, logic, outputs, built so someone else could open the file and understand it.
Eight modules, each a whole project:
- Advanced sound-reactive systems — twelve musical bands, RMS triggers, temporal memory; a twelve-pillar LED simulation that reads as a performance piece.
- Modular tool design — a dripping digital spray-paint tool, split into model and visual so it scales.
- Computer vision, three ways — camera-difference triggers; silhouettes into 3D and feedback (an interactive wall that follows people); MediaPipe hand gestures driving a media carousel that loads its own content.
- Interactive games — a touchscreen memory game: Render Pick, Python game logic, state handling.
- GLSL with Vanta — round two — GLSL materials, vertex and fragment shaders, point clouds in 3D, modifying shaders you didn’t write.
- Python with Dan Molnar (Function Store) — round two — custom tools, automation, extensions, external libraries.
The same two guests again because a whole application eventually needs both languages, and one introduction isn’t enough to use them with intent.
Same community, one level up. The Discord carries on from the Beginner Class, and NODE’s Berlin events — the TouchDesigner Roundtable among them — are where intermediate-level questions get answered in person. Certificate of completion at the end.
Eight live three-hour sessions on Zoom — Tuesdays 6–9 pm Berlin time, 9 Feb – 30 Mar 2027 — recorded and available the day after, with project files and Discord. Access for at least three years. €360 Student · €480 Professional · €640 Company (incl. VAT). Prerequisite: the Beginner Class or equivalent. Week 1 is a free sample lesson. → https://thenodeinstitute.org/courses/touchdesigner-intermediate-class-winter-2026-27/