Container and Collasping

Container Vs. Collapsing? any tutorial links or quick differences on what should be used where and which is better for a certain circumstance? Is there any way to un-collapse nodes once they have been collapsed and return with all node strings unharmed?

Can you say a little more about what you’re after?

Do you mean generally - when should you encapsulate a part of your network, or are you looking to track down the difference between containers and bases?

Collapsing a select bit of the network should only copy the selected nodes into a container and then provide an in and out op - assuming that you’ve selected the middle part of a chain of operators. You could undo this process by navigating inside of the comp, copying the contents, and then pasting them in another network location.

basically was looking to see if I should be using a container or if collapsing was ok for just sections of my network. Just trying to organize and clean. Only problem I see when I cut and paste out of base or where i collasped into another part of the network is any "strings"or relative chop links I have does not follow and I have to relink them. Hi M. This is Jeremy, It is in regards to my network I emailed you recently, was just looking for ways of cleaning up my network for my project. I had collapsed a few bunches for real estate purposes but wasn’t sure if that was the right way to approach it.
Thanks for reply

OH!

Hey there sir!

Collapsing is generally a great way to make your networks more modular and easier to read. In general, I would say that bases are better ops for this than containers. Containers carry with them a set of UV coords and a texture that can be used for control panels and the like. This is very handy if you want to build something that’s going to show up in a UI, but if you’re just looking to clean up your project they can accidentally introduce unexpected results - especially if you’re already inside of a container.

You’re very right that if you pull something out of a base or container you’ll need to re-wire it to get it working again.

I generally think about collapsing bits as functional blocks that are re-usable - a way of making something that I can use again later. As a bonus, your newly collapsed snippet can be saved as a tox.

Thanks ! This helps a lot . I’ll keep you posted on the project! Getting close .