Would anyone happen to know of any references to node performance data in regards to learning better practices and efficiency?
For example, is a Map Range node more expensive than a Color Ramp?
There is a lot of resource material out there for beginning material design, but it really drops off when you want to start to dig deeper into things.
Other way around- map range is much lighter. The best way to learn this stuff is to look at the node source code and ask experts what it all means
The source code is the best reference you can find.
In terms of memory, the ColorRamp uses more memory (floats vs colors). But in terms of speed, both use the same algorithm and the performance is quite the same.
correction (I confused the maprange with the floatcurve)…
The MapRange is far faster than the ColorRamp, as it only makes a few multiplications and subtractions. The ColorRamp needs to store the control points and interpolate them.
What’s your end goal of wanting to know?
Knowledge and to better my abilities by being more efficient?
An example would be knowing that I’ve tuned a procedural material as much as I really can and that the remaining next step for performance would be baking it out.
But if I’m ignorant of these things I can end up in situations where I sacrifice fidelity for performance when I didn’t need to.
Would like to see more interpolation modes in map range, as well as a clip preview output as I now have to use a custom node for this. While never as flexible as curves and ramp, map range does offer the flexibility of controlling the parameters (like noise → from min).