Moonshine¶
Moonshine is a collaborative control surface for aligning and running multi-projector shows.
One Windows show computer runs the TouchDesigner render engine and serves the interface. Operators use the portable Windows client or a trusted browser on the same network to sign in and work on one shared project: the surfaces you are projecting onto, where each projector sits, how its image is warped and masked, and what plays back.
Who it is for¶
Moonshine is built for the person standing in the room with the projectors: the operator or designer who has to get several beams landing accurately on a real surface and then run media through them. You do not need to know anything about the machine doing the rendering — everything happens through the interface in front of you.
It suits work where:
- more than one projector covers a single surface, and the edges have to agree;
- the surface is not a flat screen — a set piece, a building, a sculpture, a curved wall;
- alignment happens on site, often from a ladder or the middle of the room, with a phone or tablet in hand;
- more than one person is aligning at once and nobody can afford to overwrite anyone else's work.
Start here¶
Install and activate — start the TouchDesigner show server, connect the portable client or a browser, and activate the show machine when required.
Your first mapping — about ten minutes, start to finish: create a project, add a projector and a surface, put media on it, align it, play it back.
Join from a phone or tablet — scan a QR code to open the same session on another device on the network, so you can align from where the projection actually lands.
Find your way around¶
New to the interface? Tour of the interface walks the parts of the frame that never change — the top bar, the sidebar, the scene graph panel, the status bar and the floating cards.
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Projects & Media | Creating projects, uploading media and models, putting media on a surface |
| Building the Scene | Surfaces, projectors, display outputs, view modes, the scene graph |
| Alignment | 4-corner keystone, bezier mesh, sculpting the 3D surface, baking |
| Masking | Vector masks and layers, per projector |
| Playback | Playlists, transport, transitions, image adjustments |
| Working Together | Locks, following another operator, co-sculpting, users and sessions |
| Monitoring | Network health, projector status, logs |
| Reference | Shortcuts, command palette, file formats, glossary, FAQ |
How a session fits together¶
The show computer holds the project and does the rendering. Every connected client or browser is a window onto that one project — there is no local copy to reconcile later, and no Save button. Changes you make appear on everyone else's screen as you make them, and the dot in the top bar tells you when they have been written to the show computer.
Because several people can edit at once, Moonshine takes a lock on whatever you are actively editing — a projector, a warp, the playback transport — so a second person cannot change the same thing underneath you. See Locks for how that plays out in practice.