DanT's new adventures in TouchDesigner

VCV Rack
21

Episode 5

NDI super powers

I’ve been using a webcam as a video input to learn TD techniques and it occurred to me that it would be cool to be able to use the TD processed webcam video in things like Discord or Zoom etc…

So after a bit of searching I found out about NDI Tools

This really opens up a lot of possibilities for sending and receiving video and audio streams!

Using the Screen Capture app I can send my system audio directly into TouchDesigner, no loopback or virtual audio port faffing required

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In TD you need an NDI In TOP to use in an Audio NDI CHOP, but once you have the audio coming in you can bypass the TOP if you just want audio and not video from the screen capture

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And then once you have the audio you can use it as normal to create reactive visuals.

I believe that you can also stream video and audio from any PC or Mac on the same network as well, though I haven’t tested this yet.

The really cool part I think though, is you can use an NDI Out TOP to create a virtual webcam of your TD visuals (and audio too if you want).

You can then use this webcam in video chat apps… you might for example create a concert with TD visuals and stream it over Discord to an audience…

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Still lots to explore and I am finding NDI to be really useful.

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2 Likes
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Amazing, just tried this and it works great, running VCV on my new Mac, sending the video and audio via NDI Scan Convertor.

Running TD on my PC, simply use the NDI In TOP & CHOP to get the video and audio

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23

@dan.tilley I am not a developer and have some understanding of communication between different apps, i know you are and have made some amazing stuff. Do you think it is possible to create a plugin that shows the visuals from TD in a small window in VCV?

I assume the video out from TD might be a start or stream?

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What people usually do is composite the visuals via green-screen process, with the assistance of modules like Purfenator or pachde Null to set up the green bits where the video will land.

1 Like
25

it is definitely possible, but the question is at what effort?

NDI Tools have a section on their website for developers, so I guess it should be possible to create an integration that can display NDI streams. Feels like it would not be a simple job though

As Paul says, it would be a lot simpler and already possible with various free modules, to just composite in the TD visuals, or Chroma key them in OBS

if that is too involved, you could try using the LowFatMilk module, its pretty cool

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You know, it might be worth making a feature request to VCV to have an NDI integration since v3 is now being developed…

1 Like