About the Node View and the Tools Tabs

 

Every effect in Shake is a distinct node that can be inserted into a networks of linked functions, or a node tree. Each node has its own specific function and specific parameters. You create nodes by selecting them in the Tool Tabs. They then appear in the Node View, which can be used to select, view, and organize your composite.

In both the Tool Tabs and the Node View, you can access a menu with the Right mouse button.

Like the other windows, you can use Middle mouse or Alt+Left to pan. The Node View can also use Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse to zoom in and out.

Another navigation aid is the Overview. Hit O in the Node View to turn on the Overview. You can click and drag in the Overview, and the Node View jumps to reflect the changes you have made.


Creating Nodes

Add nodes into a tree in one of four ways:

All of these functions can also be done by Right clicking on the tab name itself. This gives you a popup menu. The modifier keys (see below) work as well. Additionally, if you lower the Tools Tabs so only the tabs are visible, you can also access the popup menus with the Left mouse, which is a cool trick:

 

When you drag open a tab with the Right mouse, you can create multiple nodes within that tab by selecting them with the Right mouse. Using the Left mouse closes the tab.

You have several ways of inserting nodes into the tree:

 

 

 

 

 

 

To disconnect a noodle, Ctrl+click on it, or put the cursor over the noodle (it turn red) and press Delete.

 


Connecting Nodes

You can connect nodes by dragging the output of one node and dragging it to the input of another node. If a different node is already connected, it is replaced by the new node.

You can also drag an input of a node to the output of a different node, for example, from one of Over1's inputs to the output of bg.

 

You can drag as many connections from the output or to the output of a node as you want. The input knots can have only one noodle connecting them.

 

 



Selecting Nodes



Select by name Enter the search string, and it immediately activates nodes that match. For example, if you put just f, FileIn1 and Fade would be selected. If you enter fi, just the FileIn1 would be selected.
Select by type Selects by node type. For example, enter Move, and all Move2D and Move3D nodes are selected.
Select by expression Allows you to enter an expression. For example, you want to find all nodes with an angle parameter greater than 180:

angle>180
Match case Sets case sensitivity.

 



Loading a Node Into a Viewer

Click on the left side of a node to load that node into the current Viewer. If you double-click, you also load that node's parameters into the Parameter Workspace.

When a node is being displayed, a small light appears on the left side. Additionally, a number and a letter appear above it to indicate which Viewer it is in, followed by which compare buffer.



Loading a Node's Parameters

Click on the right side of the node to load parameters into the Parameter in the Parameter1 tab. Here, the parameters for vanilla are loaded.

If you Shift + click, you will load the parameters into the Parameter2 tab.



Renaming a Node

Click on the right side of the node to load a node's parameters into the Parameter1 tab. Change the nodeName parameter to a new name. No spaces or funny characters allowed (', .!, etc.). Also, don't name a node another function, like Fade.

FileIns and FileOuts automatically rename themselves based on the file they are referring to.



Ignoring a Node

To turn off the processing of a node, select the node(s) and press I. This puts a red diagonal line over the node indicating it is ignored. To re-activate a node, press I.

You can also load a node in the Parameters, and turn on the ignoreNode button in the Parameter tab.

For scripting purposes, this places the Ignore function after an ignored node, which is not visible in the Node View.

 

 



Grouping and Collapsing Nodes

You can collapse several selected nodes into one group by first selecting them and then pressing G. When it is grouped, you can still view the result of it. In this case, it would show the Scale14 node. You can also reattach the node with the output knot.

If you touch the diamond button on the group, you can open the group up. When it is open, you can resize the window, press L to Layout the nodes, and Home to center the nodes. Press the diamond button again to close the group.

To ungroup the nodes, press G again when the group is selected.

 



Opening Macros

Examine the contents of a macro by pressing B. This opens up the macro in the same way as if you were looking at a group of nodes. Clicking on the macro, placing the cursor over a blank spot and pressing Alt+B closes the macro back to its normal appearance. When looking at an open macro, you can view any parameter or stage of the macro, but you cannot edit parameters or rewire nodes.

 

Linking Nodes

You can link one node with another by copying it and pasting it in with Shift+Ctrl+V instead of Ctrl+V. This links the pasted node back to the original node. If you modify the pasted node, the link disappears for that particular parameter. Otherwise, you would typically tune the master node.

To view the links, press Ctrl+E in the Node View. Green lines display the connections between nodes:

 



Thumbnails

Thumbnails are automatically generated in the Node View for all Image nodes. The thumbnails are meant to be visual roadmarks to help navigate your Node View. They do not constantly update, and so therefore do not slow down your frame-to-frame processing.

 

The thumbnails are stored in the cache and, since they are rarely modified, should be relatively painless to retrieve at later script loadings.

Thumbnail Keyboard Shortcuts/Commands:
Function
R (on active nodes)
Refresh/Create Thumbnail
T (on active nodes)
Thumbnail on/off
A/C (over thumbnail)
Display Alpha/Color channels
Globals - displayThumbnails
Turns on and off all thumbnails.
Globals - thumbSizeRelative
Makes thumbnails similar size or relative to their actual sizes
Globals - thumbAlphaBlend
Turns thumbnail transparency on and off
Globals - thumbSize
Controls the display size of the thumbnails.

All Global settings can be saved with Save Interface Settings in the File menu.

If you want to generate a thumbnail of a non-Image node, select the node and press R. This is also used to refresh a thumbnail to the current frame:

 

Before you whip out an email to ask why they aren't always updating, here's a pre-emptive strike: If the thumbnails were dynamic, it would be either inefficient or inaccurate. If you worked on high-res plates, then you would constantly be shrinking down 2k plates for the purposes of a thumbnail. The alternative is to use tiny images, but as soon as you put a DilateErode of 5 on it, you have no idea if what you are seeing is accurate or not. When working with a sequence, your problems just compound, especially if you have 500+ nodes.

When you place the cursor over a thumbnail, it will indicate what frame is loaded as a thumbnail and if you are looking at Color (C) or the Alpha (A). If you press A or C over the thumbnail, it displays the Alpha or Color channels:

 

If you drag a thumbnail over another one, you can get a glimpse of what they might look like comped. Ain't it swell? Probably useless, but it plays well in Peoria. Under the Globals - displayThumbnails subtree is thumbAlphaBlend toggle to deactivate the transparency.

 

Thumbnail size can be modified by adjusting the Globals - thumbSize slider. Thumbnails are displayed at the same width. However, you may want to have images display their true relative sizes. Turn on Globals - thumbSizeRelative to do this. In the following images, the greenscreen is PAL and the truck is 410x410:

thumbSizeRelative deactivated
thumbSizeRelative activated

 

You can declare any specific type of node to always contain thumbnails with the following ui .h code:

 

For example, to add FileOuts into the list of node receiving a thumbnail, set the following code:

nuiNodeViewEnableThumbnail("FileOut");

You can also disable an enabled node with:

nuiNodeViewDisableThumbnail("FileOut");

To do all nodes, use NRiFx as your class. Note, however, that specifying downstream nodes (especially FileOut nodes) can cause pauses at script load time, as the entire tree has to be calculated to derive the proper thumbnail. Use with caution.

To have thumbnails always off, turn them off in the Globals and save your settings with Save Interface Settings in the File menu, or add the following ui .h code:

script.displayThumbnails = 0;

 



The Node View Right-mouse menu

SubMenu
Function
Keyboard
Notes
Nodes   Create nodes directly in the Node View from the list.
Edit Cut Ctrl+X Removes selected nodes and places them into the paste buffer.
  Copy Ctrl+C Copies the selected nodes into the paste buffer
  Paste Ctrl+V Pastes the buffer into the node view. You can also copy nodes from the Node View and paste them into a Text document. This is really swank, by the way. It won't impress your mother, but it might impress her if she is programmer.
  Delete Delete Deletes the selected nodes. If the branching is not complicated, the noodles between the parent(s) and children are automatically reattached to each other.
  Undo Ctrl+Z Undo up to 100 steps. Rearranging nodes counts as a step.
  Redo Ctrl+Y Redo your steps unless you have changed values after you have done several undos.
View Zoom In + Zooms into the Node View (also use Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse)
  Zoom Out - Zooms out of the Node View (also use Ctrl+Alt+Left mouse)
  Reset View Home Centers all nodes.
  Frame Selection F Frames all selected nodes into the Node View.
Render Render Flipbook   Renders a flipbook of the node visualized in the active Viewer.
  Render Selected FileOuts   Renders all selected FileOut nodes, and therefore writes them to disk.
  Render All FileOuts   Renders all FileOut nodes, and therefore writes them to disk.
Overview On/Off O

Turns on the Overview window to help navigate in the Node View.

 

Expr Links On/Off Ctrl+E Displays links between nodes.
Select Find Nodes Ctrl + F Activates nodes according to what you enter in the Search string field.
  • Select by name. Enter the search string, and it immediately activates nodes that match. For example, if you put just f, FileIn1 and Fade would be selected. If you enter fi, just the FileIn1 would be selected.

  • Select by type. This selects by node type. For example, enter Transform, and all Move2D and Move3D nodes are be selected.

  • Select by expression. Allows you to enter an expression. For example, you want to find all nodes with an angle parameter greater than 180:

    angle>180

  • Match case. Sets case sensitivity.
  All Ctrl+A Selects all nodes.
  Associated Nodes Shift+A Selects all nodes attached to the current group.
  Invert Selection ! All selected nodes are deactivated, all deactivated nodes are activated.
  Select Upstream Shift+U Adds all nodes upstream from the currently active nodes to the active group.
  Select Downstream Shift+D Adds all nodes downstream from the currently active nodes to the active group.
  Select Upstream 1 Level Shift+Up arrow Adds one upstream node to the current selection.
  Add Downstream 1 Level Shift + Down Arrow Adds one downstream node to the current selection.
Node Layout Layout Selected L Automated layout on the selected nodes.
  Align Selected Vertically X Snaps all selected nodes into the same column.
  Align Selected Horizontally Y Snaps all selected nodes into the same row.
Thumbnails Refresh Selected Thumbnails R Activates/refreshes the thumbnails for selected nodes.
  Show/Hide Selected Thumbnails T Turns on/off selected nodes. If you haven't yet created a thumbnail (R), this will do nothing.
  View RGB Channels C Turns on the RGB
  View Alpha Channels A  
     
Group/Ungroup Selected Nodes G Visually collapses selected nodes into one node. When saved out again, they are remembered as several nodes. To ungroup them, press G again.
Maximize/Minimize Selected Groups M Opens a group into a subwindow.
Ignore/UnIgnore Selected Nodes I Deactivates selected nodes when activated. Select them again and press I to reactivate them. You can also load the parameters into the Parameter View and press ignoreNode.
Extract Selected Nodes E Pulls the active nodes from the tree, reconnecting the remaining nodes to each other.
Save Selection as Script S Saves the selected nodes as a script.
Force Selected FileIn Reload   When an image is changed on disk and you have already looked at that image in the GUI, Shake does not recognize that the image has change. Selecting these two functions force the checking of the date stamp for the images on disk.
Force All FileIn Reload  
Macro Make Macro Shift+M Launches the MacroMaker with the selected nodes as the macro body.
  Show Macro Internals B Opens up a macro into a subwindow so you can review wiring and parameters. You cannot change the nodes inside the subwindow.
  Hide Macro Internals Alt+B Closes up the macro subwindow when the cursor is placed outside of the open macro.