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Tunnels effect

Droste Loop

Droste Loop is a tunnel and feedback effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Classic Droste effect: the image contains a smaller copy of itself, which contains another, recursing inward. Continuous zoom advances by exactly one nesting level per loop for a seamless infinite recursion.

Runs live on video, images, a camera or generated art. Stack it with any other effect, and route LFOs, envelopes or any of ten audio bands to its controls so it moves with the music.

Try Droste Loop free All effects

The untouched demo art: an eye inside a triangle over wavy teal, blue and peach lines — Source

Wavy teal and peach lines nested in shrinking squares tunnelling to the centre, triangle corners at the edges — Droste Loop, default settings

What Droste Loop does

Cuts a shape out of the middle and fills it with a smaller copy of the whole frame, which holds another copy, up to eight levels deep. Across each loop the view zooms in by exactly one level, so it falls forever without a jump. Shape picks square, triangle, circle or hexagon, Nest sets the inner copy's size, and Gain trims the brightness.

Using Droste Loop

Where it works: Pack loops, since at Speed centre the zoom lands back where it started once per loop. It also gives cover art a picture-in-picture depth that reads instantly, even as a thumbnail.
With the music: The zoom follows the loop length, not the audio. A bar-synced LFO on Nest makes the tunnel breathe deeper and shallower, or send B1 (kick) to Gain for a brightness punch on every kick.
Starting point: Nest centre, Blend centre, Gain centre, Background hard left, Shape just past a quarter for triangle, Speed centre so the loop closes.

Controls

Nest: Inner rectangle size (recursion depth feel).
Blend: Final mix toward the recursive sample.
Gain: Brightness trim on the nested sample.
Background: Key out near-black pixels as transparent (0 = off, 1 = strong).
Shape: Slider bands: square, triangle, circle, hexagon.
Speed: Zoom cycles per loop (seamless when the rate is a whole number).

Pairs well with Droste Loop