The Waveform Generation
Scan · October 2026 · Wavgen research base
TouchDesigner Community Tools Scan
A sourced catalogue of the community and Patreon tools ecosystem around TouchDesigner — the named creators Rob flagged, plus the wider field found alongside them. This page is the living base for a planned TouchDesigner Deep Dive 2027 across wavgen.ca, Derivative's channels, and social.
What changed in 2025–2026
Two patterns run through almost everything in this scan. They are the spine of the 2027 series.
The custom operator family era
T3D grew into TDFam, and TDFam became the substrate for a wave of new families: GSOPs (Gaussian splats), L2D (2D lighting), MOPs (modular synthesis), POPX, AML (Apple ML), and Function Store's FNS family. Builders are no longer shipping single .tox files — they are shipping operator families with installers, versioning, and docs.
The MCP era
At least five distinct TouchDesigner MCP servers exist as of October 2026 — TwoZero, Embody's Envoy, 8beeeaaat's touchdesigner-mcp, Pantani's tdmcp / MindDesigner, and Derivative's own official TDMCP, launched September–October 2026 — plus a same-named package on PyPI. AI agents can now build networks directly inside TouchDesigner.
The catalogue
Price and licence are stated only where a public page exposed them. Where Patreon did not expose a tier table, the entry says so — those amounts are marked Unverified and should be checked on the tier page before quoting them anywhere.
Also spotted — not full entries
- L2D operator family — TDFam-built family for real-time 2D lighting (Monte Carlo GI, Radiance Cascades, Direct renderers; Windows + Mac). Author name not exposed on the fetched posts — unverified. Patreon post
- TD-ML — ML toolkit for CHOPs (MLP/LSTM, VAE, UMAP; scikit-learn / PyTorch), beta/experimental, by “bi.os” / Joel per forum replies. Derivative Community post
- touchdesigner-mcp on PyPI — a second, unrelated package with the same name (v0.3.0, Oct 13 2026, MIT; Web Server DAT on port 9980, uvx touchdesigner-mcp). Do not confuse it with 8beeeaaat's server. PyPI
- Cumulus — multi-camera people tracking with persistent cluster IDs and POP geometry masks; free tier, paid licence “planned at roughly $50–100 at launch” — pre-launch, unverified as a shipping price. cumulustracking.com
The MCP landscape
There is no single “the TouchDesigner MCP” in October 2026. A Deep Dive 2027 episode should compare these on tool count, transport, security model, and whether agent changes are undoable.
| Tool | Maker | Mechanism | Price basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| TwoZero | 404.zero + setupdesign | Built-in MCP server (localhost:40404/mcp, key twozero_td) for Claude Code / Cursor / Codex, plus ZOP AI-model adapters | Plugin + MCP free forever; PRO $19/mo |
| Envoy (in Embody) | Dylan Roscover | Embedded MCP server — 52 tools on the current site; localhost:9870 in the older listing. Generates a CLAUDE.md for the agent; the TDXN text format gives readable project context | Free, open source |
| TDMCP | Derivative (official) | MCP server inside TD on TD's bundled Python — 26 tools, docs-serving tools, agent Skills package; auth on by default, localhost-only, changes land in the undo stack | Free; Shared Use License |
| touchdesigner-mcp | 8beeeaaat | MCP ↔ WebServer DAT bridge; 14 tools; Claude Desktop extension | Free, MIT |
| tdmcp / MindDesigner | Pantani | MCP server + in-TD bridge; 179 tools; embedded knowledge base of 629 operators and 68 Python classes | $0 listing |
| touchdesigner-mcp (PyPI) | Unnamed author | MCP via uvx, Web Server DAT on port 9980 | Free, MIT |
Not MCP, but part of the same shift: DotSimulate's LOPs put LLM / language operators inside TD, Mickey van Olst's AML includes a Local LLM operator on-device, and the TDFam / FNSTools ecosystem is the infrastructure new agent-era tools ship on.
Real-time AI generation
The diffusion cluster, from the reference implementation to the native-operator challengers.
- StreamDiffusionTD — DotSimulate. The reference implementation: v0.4.1, SDXL-Turbo with ControlNet / IP-Adapter / FaceID / StreamV2V / live LoRA on TensorRT locally (Windows, NVIDIA 6 GB+ VRAM, 24 GB recommended, Python 3.11.9 exactly, CUDA 12.8), or via the Daydream cloud backend with no local GPU, including on Mac. Daydream page
- ComfyTD — DotSimulate. A TOX to control ComfyUI workflows from inside a TD network. Distinct from ComfyUI-TD, a ComfyUI-side node for sending media back to TD — a name collision worth flagging in any catalogue.
- SD TOP — Unveil Studio / Simo. Native-operator alternative with no Python or TensorRT model conversion. €15 for a 6-month licence via Lemon Squeezy; RTX 30/40/50 series.
- TouchDiffusion — CtrlAltCtrl. Beta real-time diffusion tool announced on Patreon around October 2026; details unverified.
- TwoZero ZOPs. Hosted generation as wired operators — 1,361 models at scan time, chat / image / video, cost shown before a run and failed generations not charged. Generation, but cloud-hosted rather than local diffusion.
- Adjacent AI: AML's Diffusion and CoreML operators (on-device, macOS), Nurbs' depth + relight .tox (Metric3D v2 via ONNX), TwoZero's Depth AI and Background Removal rudiments, and TD-ML for training and inference on CHOP data.
Existing roundups & directories
No single published directory found combines Patreon, Gumroad, and GitHub TouchDesigner tools with prices, licences, and TD-build requirements in one table — that gap is the niche this scan, and the 2027 series, can fill.
- Derivative Community — the canonical asset and tutorial feed where most of these tools are announced. Start with Function Store's curated article: “Tools You Didn't Know You Needed”
- allTD.org — tutorial aggregation, rebuilt as allTD v2 in April 2026: “5,000+ Tutorials: The largest collection of TouchDesigner content on the web (as of April 2026),” run by Jan Gryczan. alltd.org
- awesome-touchdesigner (GitHub) — curated list of resources, community projects, and plugins. github.com/monkeymonk/awesome-touchdesigner
- Interactive & Immersive HQ — “Top Community Tools for TouchDesigner” — editorial roundup covering Artio, SOP to SVG, Josef Pelz's Constraint Simulation, Warpa, and more. interactiveimmersive.io
- Derivative — TouchDesigner Deep Dive 2020 resource list — the direct ancestor of the planned 2027 series, with its author / resource / link table. Deep Dive 2020
- MusicHackspace “Custom Tools for TouchDesigner” meetup (Oct 2026) — a live roundup event with FNSTools, AVY, and MOPs toolmakers presenting. MusicHackspace
- Storefronts as directories: Function Store's own site (86 searchable packages) and TwoZero's Hub / rudiments library act as de-facto directories for their ecosystems; MCP directories such as mcpservers.org, PulseMCP, and Glama now index the TD MCP servers.
From scan to Deep Dive 2027
How this page evolves into the series that reintroduces Rob's TouchDesigner work — he authored the original TouchDesigner Deep Dive — across wavgen.ca, Derivative's site, and social.
Keep this scan current
This catalogue is the reference layer: 26 entries with distribution, price basis, licence, and TD-build requirements, caveats intact. New tools and version bumps land here first.
Work the install queue
Embody, the DotSimulate harvest, 404zero / TwoZero, and MediaPipe for TD are already queued for install and testing on the Gold Image workstation — first-hand install notes replace index-only claims with tested ones.
Deep Dive 2027
Episodes the scan already outlines: the five-way MCP comparison, the TDFam operator-family wave, a real-time diffusion shootout (StreamDiffusionTD vs SD TOP vs ZOPs), and Patreon toolmaker conversations — published to wavgen.ca and Derivative, cut down for social.
Method & caveats
- Basis: web-index research as of October 24, 2026. Full primary pages were fetched through the index for TwoZero, Function Store / FNSTools, DotSimulate's StreamDiffusionTD docs, Embody, 404zero's TwoZero docs, and Derivative's TDMCP GitHub. Nothing here is labelled “verified live” — a separate live check could not resolve DNS for twozero.ai or functionstore.tools on Oct 24, which was a research-window failure, not evidence the sites are down.
- Pricing rule: a price appears only where a public page exposed it. Patreon generally does not expose full tier tables to non-members, so most Patreon tier prices are unverified in this scan.
- Conflicts carried, not resolved: TwoZero's minimum build is 2025.33230+ on twozero.ai and 2025.33070+ in the 404zero.com docs. Embody's is 2025.33230+ on the current site versus 2025.32280 on an earlier mirror. Envoy's tool count is 52 on the current site versus 45 in an MCP-repository listing. Resolve each by testing the current .tox.
- Licences not found on public pages for SARV, T3D, RayTK (name), MediaPipe-TD (Torin's repo), Embody (specific name), AML, MOPs, GeoPix (specific name), Pantani's tdmcp, Dewpoint, Nurbs, Okamirufu, AVY, and Warpa / SimpleMixer. Check each repo or maker before redistributing anything.
- Spelling variants in sources: 404zero's Alexander Letcius (Derivative) vs Letsius (Interactive & Immersive HQ). RayTK's author is “Tekt / t3kt” on primary sources; a full name on one course page was not corroborated and is not used here.