FNSTools by Function Store

FNSTools on Patreon

Most FNSTools packages are free and MIT licensed. A few tools unlock with a Patreon membership or a Gumroad licence key. You install and update them through the same picker.

Free · MIT

Nearly everything

The core registries and nearly every tool in the catalogue.

  • Use it without an account or sign-in. The toolkit sends no telemetry and never phones home.
  • Source on GitHub. Read it, fork it, use it in commercial work.
  • Every machine you own, and every machine you set up for someone else.
  • Free stays free. A tool that is free today does not become paid later.
Get FNSTools →
Patreon

A few tools

Paid tools in the FNSTools catalogue. Sign in with Patreon or redeem a Gumroad licence key to download them.

  • Visible and documented. These tools sit in the picker and the docs like any other, marked Patreon.
  • Base, Pro or Coaching. Each tool names the lowest Patreon tier that unlocks it, and every tier above it unlocks it too.
  • Same installer. Install and update alongside your free tools.
See the tiers How to unlock →

What Patreon unlocks right now

Each tool links to its documentation and names the lowest Patreon tier that unlocks it.

ChopBank A bank of channel processors: one block per channel, each with its own range, exponent curve, zero-below, lag and speed mode, built from the input with one Snap Input, with gain before and after and every block promoted as a property. An alternative for the Math CHOP and the Constant CHOP. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs → ChopProcess Shapes channels in one node: limit, remap between ranges with an exponent curve, zero at the bottom, lag, and an optional speed mode that turns the result into a running total. An alternative for the Math CHOP. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs → CircularDistortionTOP A circular distortion for images: rings of displacement around a centre you place, with phase, frequency, amplitude and a mode blend, and a choice of how the input extends past its edge. ◧ Visual · Base tier or higher Read the docs → ColorGen A colour palette generator: a lookup of any length shaped by a phase step per channel and per channel exponents, with a lookup ramp as a second output. ◧ Visual · Base tier or higher Read the docs → ColorGenPro A cosine palette generator in GLSL: the full coefficient set per channel, an RGB and D mode, blackout and soft regions, and a lookup ramp as a second output. ◧ Visual · Pro tier or higher Read the docs → ConstantCHOP A Constant CHOP with typed values: numbers, toggles, tuples, text, paths or operator references, each promoted as a property you can read and set from Python, and a snap from its input. An alternative for the Constant CHOP. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs → EaseInterpolator Crossfades between two CHOPs through an easing curve: thirty classic easings from sine to bounce, or a custom curve from a third input, all driven by one Select value. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs → FeedbackDisplace A feedback loop with a displace stage inside it: opacity, crossfade, filter size, displacement driven by a built-in noise or a second input, a per-pass transform, reset and a dry/wet mix. An alternative for the Feedback TOP. ◧ Visual · Base tier or higher Read the docs → FloatDataRecorder Records a float texture such as a depth point cloud, a colour texture and a CHOP to files in sync, then plays the three back together against the timeline with a frame offset. ▶ Show & output · Base tier or higher Read the docs → InstanceTrailer Turns one moving image into a trail of its recent frames: a cache laid out in a row or column with exponent-shaped spacing, plus the offsets as a CHOP for instancing. ◧ Visual · Base tier or higher Read the docs → KinectSinglePlayer Picks one player out of a Kinect skeleton stream: whoever stands inside the bounds you set becomes the active player, and their joints ride out as clean channels until they leave. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs → LayerSep3D Slices an image into depth layers by a channel threshold and instances them as a stack in 3D, with per layer threshold, softness, mix, position, scale and rotation driven by curves or CHOPs. ⁂ 3D and Particles · Base tier or higher Read the docs → LinkOPs Links the parameters of several operators so a change on one lands on all of them, with exceptions by operator and by parameter, an automatic mode and a one-shot sync. ◎ Parameters · Base tier or higher Read the docs → MaskDraw Draw a mask with the mouse straight onto the image: a panel you paint in, with the mask and the masked image as outputs, a lock and a reset. ◧ Visual · Pro tier or higher Read the docs → MoveDetectDir Reads which way things move in a camera or any image with optical flow and turns it into left/right and down/up channels, with thresholds, inversion and filtering, for swipe and gesture triggers. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs → OpenOp A one-button shortcut to a deeply nested operator: drop it on the field once, then a pulse opens its parameter window, its viewer window, or both. ⇄ Network · Base tier or higher Read the docs → Particles2D_POP A 2D particle simulation as a POP loop: a source image emits particles, curl noise and wind effectors steer them with lookup ranges, trails stretch them, and the loop rides out as points for your own render. ⁂ 3D and Particles · Base tier or higher Read the docs → ParticlesGpuUltimate A GPU particle system driven by images: a thresholded source emits particles, look, life, turbulence, wind and force fields shape them, a fluid simulation can carry them, with raw colour, position and optical-flow inputs and one rendered output. ⁂ 3D and Particles · Pro tier or higher Read the docs → PrismTOP A kaleidoscopic prism: the input rendered through instanced, rotating polygon facets in up to three ring patterns, with softness, a chromatic distortion pass, fit and transform, and a dry/wet mix. An alternative for the Tile TOP and the Mirror TOP. ◧ Visual · Base tier or higher Read the docs → RealRamp A ramp with a true phase and period and its colour keys as parameters: vertical, horizontal, radial or circular, holding, zeroing, repeating or mirroring past its ends, so a driven phase never drifts or snaps the way a keyed Ramp TOP can. An alternative for the Ramp TOP. ◧ Visual · Base tier or higher Read the docs → SeqMod Watches a sequence of parameters on any COMP: name the target and the sequence, and the block parameters are published as one list, with a callback for every block added or removed. ⌨ Developer · Base tier or higher Read the docs → SlideShow A slideshow of a folder of images: timed or stepped with next and previous, in order or random, with a crossfade between slides and a fitted output resolution. ▶ Show & output · Base tier or higher Read the docs → SwitchTools A companion for any Switch, Cross or multi-input operator: index by slider, menu or bind, loop or clamp, colour the live input, cook only the inputs in use and unload the rest from the GPU, plus reorder, reverse, randomize and align the inputs. ▶ Show & output · Base tier or higher Read the docs → TopToMidi Samples an image at points you define and turns the pixel values into MIDI notes in a musical scale, with trigger gating, retrigger control, a MIDI-learned custom scale and output to a MIDI Out or VST CHOP. ∿ CHOPs & sensing · Base tier or higher Read the docs →

Two ways to unlock

Membership

Patreon

Ongoing support. Your tier (Base, Pro or Coaching) decides which tools you get, and they stay current for as long as you are a member.

  • Covers more than the toolkit: the same membership reaches the other Function Store tools.
  • New tools at your tier appear as they ship, without buying anything again.
  • Connect once per machine, from inside TouchDesigner.
Tiers and pricing →
Licence key

Gumroad

A one-time purchase for a single tool, sold on Gumroad and redeemed with a key, with no membership or recurring charge.

  • One key per tool. Hold as many as you have bought, and add or remove them individually.
  • How many machines a key covers is stated on the Gumroad page.
  • Redeemed in the same place as the Patreon connection.
Where to redeem →

Unlocking, step by step

  1. Install the toolkit as usual. These tools need no special installer; they are rows in the same catalogue. The three steps are here.
  2. Open FNS_Updater inside the toolkit container. Its sign-in parameters are where all of this happens, and there is no separate account tool to install.
  3. Pulse Sign In, or paste a Gumroad licence key and pulse Redeem. Signing in opens Patreon in your normal browser, you approve there, and the tab hands the result back to TouchDesigner by itself.
  4. Pick your tools. The tools your tier or key covers stop being locked in the picker and install like anything else.

What it does to your machine

Worth being precise about, because the answer is short and it is the part people are right to ask about.

The questions people actually ask

What happens if my membership lapses?

Tools already installed in your project keep working. They are files in your .toe like any other component; nothing calls home to check on them, and nothing expires.

What you lose is the ability to download them again: updates to those tools, and installing them on a new machine or into a new project. Rejoin and both come back.

Does any of this change the free toolkit?

No. The free packages are served publicly and unauthenticated exactly as they were, the source stays on GitHub under MIT, and the installer does not ask you to sign in to use them. If you never unlock anything, you will not notice the gate exists beyond a few cards marked Patreon.

Nothing that is free today becomes paid later. The Patreon list grows by new tools arriving in it.

Can I still read the source of a Patreon tool?

These packages are not published to the public GitHub repository, and they are not MIT. Once installed they are ordinary TouchDesigner components in your project; you can open them, read the Python inside, and see exactly what they do. What you may not do is redistribute them.

I work on several machines: studio, laptop, a show box.

Connect each one. A membership is checked per machine against your account, so signing in on a new box is the whole procedure.

Gumroad licence keys are per tool, and how many machines one key covers is stated on the Gumroad page.

Does the toolkit need internet to run?

Only to install and to update. Once packages are in your project, TouchDesigner runs them offline, which matters on a show machine, and is why the entitlement check sits on the download, with nothing checked at startup.

Why gate anything at all?

Patreon memberships and Gumroad purchases help pay for development and maintenance of FNSTools, including the free tools.

More from Function Store

The same shape elsewhere: a free core, more with support. One membership reaches these too, each product's own page states which tier it needs.

Desktop app · Windows & macOS TDX Launcher Ultra ↗ Find the project, get the build it needs, go. Global quick-launch palette that runs your FNSTools commands, phone and browser control of a running session, git and backup panels, and a companion COMP inside TouchDesigner. Free TouchDesigner component TDXMap ↗ MIDI controller mapping without the wiring: multiple devices, banks, Smart Learn, button actions, 14-bit controls. Pro adds smoothing, pickup mode and easing curves. 14-day Pro trial · Base and Pro with a membership or a licence key

Start with the free toolkit

You can install the free tools without an account.

Get FNSTools → Pick your tools → Patreon