Last month, the 2025.33070 version of TouchDesigner was released, and with it came a bunch of new and useful features. That means it’s time once again for a new TouchDesigner release rundown! In this post, we’ll cover some of the exciting new features and updates included in the 2025.33070 TouchDesigner release, including glTF Support, the new Script POP, and more.
glTF Support
The Graphics Library Transmission Format, or glTF for short, is a royalty-free specification for the efficient transmission and loading of 3D scenes and models by engines and applications. glTF minimizes the size of 3D assets and the processing needed to unpack and use them. It is a feature-rich pathway from Blender to TouchDesigner, enabling the interoperable use of 3D content across software.
In TouchDesigner, glTF files are handled with the glTF In COMP, used for importing glTF files and the glTF Out COMP, used for exporting glTF files.
The glTF In COMP creates an internal network of nodes according to the node mapping applied to the glTF file. It can be used to import a single scene at a time. For tips specific to exporting glTF files from Blender for import into TouchDesigner, see the Blender page.
glTF files can also contain animations, an example of which is shown below right with the commercial refrigerator example model. Both models are a part of the glTF sample asset collection, which is well worth checking out to see some of the possibilities of the format: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Sample-Assets.
One thing to know about importing glTF files is that TouchDesigner doesn’t always support all of the features that the file might contain, which is why it’s helpful to follow the guidelines found on the Blender page when exporting glTF files from Blender. This commonly comes into play with materials: glTF material extensions like Clearcoat, Transmission, and IOR are not supported in TouchDesigner. In the commercial refrigerator example above right, the door is supposed to have a panel of transparent glass, which uses a transmission property that TouchDesigner doesn’t support, so the glass appears white.
Any unsupported material extensions will output a warning like those below, which is what you’ll see when importing the commercial refrigerator model shown previously.
Script POP
The POP family finally gets a Script operator of its own! Just as the Script TOP, Script CHOP, Script SOP, and Script DAT allow for the use of Python to create TOP, CHOP, SOP, or DAT data, the Script POP allows the use of Python to create POP geometry and data. The geometry above, found in the Script OP’s OP Snippets, was created with 16 lines of code.
The Script POP can generate geometry without input, as seen in the examples above, or it can filter its input POPs. It can create points, all primitive types, and any data type of point attribute, primitive attribute, or vertex attribute. It can also create array attributes and set its dimension.
In the example below, the Script POP copies the input points and then adds a new point on Pulse, triggered by the Done channel of the timer1 CHOP. The timer2 CHOP’s done channel clears the added points.
For more examples of the Script POP, check out its OP Snippets!
DAT To POP
In this release, the DAT To POP gets a major overhaul, now supporting data from multiple DAT tables which means you can provide point, primitive, and vertex data (and more)! As shown in the example below, in practive this means that you can send POP data in a round trip from the POP to DAT to the DAT To POP with its full data intact.
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.pop File Format
The .pop file format is a new native file type that provides an exact losless representation of a POP’s output. As shown above, it can be created with the File Out POP, or by simply right clicking on a POP node and selecting Save Geometry.
.pop Files can then be dragged into TouchDesigner to create a File In POP. .pop Files preserve all primitive types, attributes, groups and Dimension.
Locking POPs
Like other operators, POPs can now be locked by clicking the lock flag on the node. This freezes the operator’s contents in memory, and includes the POPs contents in the .toe file when saved. A note of caution: as with TOPs, locking POPs can make your .toe files very large!
POP Rotations
A huge list of new features have been added to better support rotations and quaternions in POPs. From the release notes:
- Copy POP – Now supports quaternion attributes. In addition to transforming positions, normals, and transform matrices, any rotation transforms will now apply to input quaternions as well.
- Can now assign quaternion attributes to the ‘Template Rotate Attribute’ parameter.
- Math Combine POP / Math Mix POP
- Added support for transforming vectors with quaternions using the A * B operations on matrix/vector/quaternion attributes. For example, A * B : quaternion attribute * vector = rotated_vector.
- Added support for quaternion product operations (quaternion x quaternion and quaternion x float3).
- It’s now possible to multiply transform matrices together.
- Added axisanglequat() in the Operation drop down menu on the Combine page to output quaternions. Note: There is a Operator Snippet for the Particle POP showing how to use this!
- Line Metrics POP – New Orientation page of parameters allow you to output the tangent–normal–binormal frame orientation along the line strips.
- You can also output an attribute containing the tangent-normal-binormal frame orientation as a rotation matrix, or a transform matrix including the position.
- New parameter ‘Input Seed Orientation’ which enables using an input attribute to define the initial orientation at each line‑strip starting point, using either quaternions or transform matrices.
- Skin Deform POP – Cam now transform quaternion attributes.
- Trail POP – Can now output the tangent–normal–binormal frame orientation along the line trips.
- Transform POP – Now supports quaternion attributes. In addition to transforming positions, normals, and transform matrices, any rotation transforms will now apply to input quaternions as well.
- Lookup Attribute POP – Can now interpolate quaternion and transform matrix attributes.
Pattern POP – Phase Step Per Cycle
Of the smaller updates that you might miss, the Pattern POP has a cool new feature which allows for a phase step per cycle.
Wrap-Up
That’s a wrap! We hope you’ve found this post a useful review of some of the notable new features in TouchDesigner’s 2025.33070 update. With so many new features, it was hard to decide what should make the cut! For a more complete look at all of the updates (including a number that we weren’t able to cover here), check out the release notes: https://docs.derivative.ca/Release_Notes
This post was adapted from the TouchDesigner 2025.33070 release notes (https://docs.derivative.ca/Release_Notes) along with various Documentation pages for the operators listed.
