Hints and Tips on how to get the most out of the Loop component

Now that the FF 4.0 Beta 2 included the very good, awesome, interesting and useful Loop and iteration component, and having seen that many of you already know well how to use it in many ways and have many ideas about what to do with it I want to ask the following:

Please, could you suggest and give ideas, suggestions and Hints & Tips on how to get the most out of the Loop component?

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(from beta 2 page) Loop is immensely powerful

As it is very powerful, it would be good to give ideas, sugesttions, hints, tips and comments on how to be able to use the new loop component at its best and what really can be done with it.

Also thought that here could be possible to have some filters examples using the new loop component uploaded to know better and learn how to use it better.

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(from beta 2 page) However, proceed with caution. At the core of the Loop component lies recursion, a concept adapted from programming languages with all its benefits and hazards (such as potential exponential growth in rendering time). Unlike many other Filter Forge components that produce visible results no matter how you connect them, Loops require a more deliberate approach. That's why we put them into the new Advanced component category, together with Scripts

I also thought to put this thread after reading this text from the beta 2 page, as it is perhaps a "dangerous" things if you do not know well how to use it and to avoid in some way to run into problems

Also as said this component requires more deliberate approach as is not simply connecting components to it, and would be good to know how to use it in the best possible way

LOOP COMPONENT OPTIMIZATION

Would be good to know about how to optimize the process of the iteration so it keeps inside an efficient and good level and don´t go into problems or becomes too slow.

What components would be good to use connected to the loops, and what other components would be perhaps a bad idea to use with this.?

Loops do add some overhead. As I just tested, on a simple Loop subtree (Free Ellipse + Blend) on 64 iterations the Loop version rendered about 1.5 times longer than the unrolled version.

However, with a heavier subtree, Loop seems to be faster than the unrolled version, about 8% faster for the attached example.

In other words, don't be afraid to use Loops (but watch out for exponential recursions!)

Loop Time.ffxml

Unless the rendering time is already too long, I'd just use the Loop anyway, as it's more flexible, compact and convenient. Unrolling is ugly.

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would be useful and better to use the new loop component and would be able to get any better render speed and be more efficient, or would not be good and justified in this specifical case?

Captain Obvious here: Try it yourself and see if it's better or not.

(I deleted some posts below. Spaceray, please don't clutter up the discussion.)

Dilla, no unrolling is planned. For debugging, you can use the Iteration (Preview) slider.

My personal advice is this: you're jumping ahead of yourself. Get with the basics. I'm glad that you get the simple things but at the point that you're saying "but only get weird things" or "I still do not know HOW to combine the components in the right way" suggests to me that you're still struggling to understand the basics of FilterForge.

In the Loop Video Tutorial I've assumed a couple things. 1. That you understand FilterForge. In other words: you've made filters from scratch, you know what you're doing or least have a decent grip on the ideas behind FF. That you're capable of creating a filter that you thought of and know what components to deal with to achieve certain aspects. 2. That not everybody's going to be on the same page with that. Some people just watch video tutorials because it's interesting. Some people are beginners... and so on. There are many things that we can assume. But understanding FF is what's key in understanding loops and what you can do with it.

Now ultimately, the most advanced applications will start requiring some level of knowledge in algebra and calculus, programming and so on. But at least by understanding the program from the bottom up, you can get somewhere and that's key.

Over the years I've seen several of your creations. It seems like you do a lot of "cherry picking" groups of components. In other words you're picking out stuff out of other people's filters and making your own stuff. Now as much as people say "don't reinvent the wheel", in FilterForge it should be "reinvent the wheel but your own way" if you truly want to understand it. I'm not saying picking out certain parts is wrong, I'm saying you need to learn why those components do something in your favor and adapt your own solutions. I feel that's another way to understand FF. I guess to some degree you're trying to do that, but I think it needs to be pushed!

Overall in summary here's my advice: 1. Don't jump the gun. Being able to do simple things is perfectly fine but doing more advanced stuff is going to require a lot more thought and understanding. 2. Get with the basics of what FilterForge does and how it behaves. There's an underlying structure to FilterForge and that structure is what you need understanding in. It'll explain why some things behave the way they do.

It's overwhelming but you have a lot of steps to climb still before you reach loops. I can write you instructions and methods but ultimately you're the one who applies these ideas and makes it happen. I basically don't want it to simply become "can somebody show me how to do X" every single thread I see. At some point you gotta figure it out on your own. It sucks but it's how I got over a lot of things.

Good luck.

WOW!! I love you for all this personal help, and I agree with you in all you have said and is very true, I can 't run before learning to walk, and have to understand well first all the basics about FF before using Loops in a good way, this is why also why it has been put in the Advanced parts of the components