02 - Mouse Navigation - TouchDesigner Tutorial: Beginner Crash Course — Transcript

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1. 0:01So the first thing we're gonna learn is how to move around with the mouse
2. 0:04and how to use the mouse in general
3. 0:06So as you can see here
4. 0:07when you open TouchDesigner for the first time
5. 0:09you're probably gonna be greeted with something like this
6. 0:11This is kinda just like a template project that opens up
7. 0:15Ninety percent of the time
8. 0:16you're probably just gonna delete it
9. 0:17or you know
10. 0:18as you become a more intermediate user
11. 0:19you're probably just gonna go in the preferences
12. 0:21and set a blank template instead of this one
13. 0:24So the first thing you can notice is as we move our mouse around
14. 0:27we can click on operators
15. 0:29That gives them a green outline
16. 0:31And operators are what we call each of the individual nodes inside of TouchDesigner
17. 0:36When you have an operator selected
18. 0:39you can left-click and drag on it to move it around
19. 0:41and you can see that the wires are dynamically kinda rerouted
20. 0:45and just to look pretty as you're moving that operator around
21. 0:49And what you can do is actually right-click and drag
22. 0:53and you'll see you get a selection box
23. 0:56And what the selection box allows you to do
24. 0:58is grab multiple operators all at once
25. 1:01And you can see one of them
26. 1:02which is your main operator
27. 1:04usually the first one you had selected
28. 1:05is green while all the other ones have a yellow outline
29. 1:09And basically what this allows you to do is left-click
30. 1:12and drag and move a whole bunch of operators
31. 1:15you know a whole area of your network
32. 1:17and we'll talk about what network means
33. 1:19But basically
34. 1:20being able to move a bunch of operators around at once
35. 1:22So this is really helpful
36. 1:23when you're trying to organize things as you go along
37. 1:26Now that's what happens when you left-click and drag on an operator
38. 1:29but you can see in the background we kinda have this grid
39. 1:32Now
40. 1:32if you left-click and drag on that grid
41. 1:35you're actually panning around inside of your workspace
42. 1:39Now we call networks basically our workspace
43. 1:42This is the network editor
44. 1:43and we'll talk about that again shortly
45. 1:45So you can kinda just even go
46. 1:47so far away that you don't see your operators
47. 1:49and then you kinda have to click and drag your way back
48. 1:52But you'll this is a really common thing you'll see
49. 1:54people do is once they have lots of
50. 1:56operators inside of a single network
51. 1:58you know they'll be going up and down and
52. 2:00and panning around to where they have the different functionality elements
53. 2:04Now one final thing that we can do
54. 2:05with our mouse is we can zoom in
55. 2:07and out using the mouse wheel
56. 2:09And I'll talk about why I don't usually use that that much
57. 2:13but for now
58. 2:14it's helpful to know that the mouse wheel helps you zoom in and out
59. 2:17So one of the big things with TouchDesigner is
60. 2:19we always recommend getting a good quality mouse
61. 2:22For my personal preference
62. 2:24I use a trackball mouse
63. 2:25something like the Logitech M570
64. 2:28or they have that new MX Ergo mouse
65. 2:31which is kinda like the 570
66. 2:33but with a little tilt
67. 2:34But any kinda good quality mouse that's gonna be comfortable for long-term use
68. 2:39You ideally want some
69. 2:40some good clicks on it uh
70. 2:41a mouse wheel
71. 2:43Also being able to click that mouse wheel'cause
72. 2:44middle-click is an important feature we'll see pretty soon
73. 2:47But you're basically gonna be using the mouse a lot
74. 2:49so we highly recommend getting a nice mouse