td_timeline_run
Walk a TouchDesigner timeline frame-by-frame as a job for history-dependent effects (Feedback TOPs, live audio); save chosen frames or just advance to warm up state.
Instructions
Walk the timeline frame by frame and save a TOP's frames — as a job.
Reach for this instead of a td_exec loop whenever frames depend on what came before them: live audio analysis, Feedback TOPs, trails, anything with history. It returns at once with a job id; poll td_timeline_status, stop with td_timeline_cancel. No request holds TouchDesigner for more than one step, so the 30 s limit on a call does not apply to the walk.
frames is the walk, e.g. "1..994". save picks the frames to write,
e.g. "92..217,459..541" (default: every frame walked), into output, a
template such as "/renders/f{frame:04d}.png". Without output nothing is
saved and the job only advances the timeline — the way to warm history up
to frame N before td_render, and then the timeline is held paused at N.
What it handles so you do not have to: it pauses the timeline and gives
the play mode back at the end (so live audio is repeatable); it walks
every frame consecutively, from the start of frames when from_start,
otherwise from the first frame to save; it waits settle application
frames between steps (2 was measured repeatable for live audio — do not go
lower with audio); and its steps cannot run twice.
tiles=2 renders past the licence's 1280 cap as 2x2 quarters, by cropping
the Render TOP(s) named in render (or path, if it is one). Put {tile}
in output: 0 top left, 1 top right, 2 bottom left, 3 bottom right. Each
quarter is a whole walk of its own, four times the time, because a
Feedback TOP only builds a quarter's history right under that quarter's
crop. Nothing resets a Feedback TOP between passes, so each quarter's
first frames carry the last one's tail — a decaying trail forgets it, an
accumulator does not. The crop goes back to 0..1 however the job ends.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| hold | No | ||
| path | Yes | ||
| save | No | ||
| tiles | No | ||
| frames | Yes | ||
| output | No | ||
| render | No | ||
| settle | No | ||
| from_start | No |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| result | Yes |