Tremor Interface and Function Manual |
What is Tremor?
Tremor is a turnkey compositing system based on the Shake engine to give you realtime access to a deck in either 601 or HD. You can capture and record footage from the Tremor interface, as well as manipulate it with the standard Shake functions. But rather than just "Shake with I/O", it leverages the hardware to give you enhanced workflow. For example, you can constantly check your work on a broadcast monitor, or get much faster throughput when tracking. This product also has a redesigned interface that is a close cousin to "classic" Shake, but has several improvements to speed up workflow as well. Finally, it comes with at least an hour of storage ("tons and tons of crazy storage"), an swank HD monitor, a Render Queue, and at least one extra background machine for rendering..
One of the key principles of Tremor is its relationship to Shake. Anything you can do in Shake, you can do in Tremor. You can also run Shake with the new Tremor-style interface - see below for details. This means a Shake operator can handle Tremor without having to learn a new system. Secondly, the two share identical scripts, so you can pass a script from Tremor to Shake to a render license and back again to Tremor with no loss of data. This means you can easily scale your project, or distribute out work to individuals without having to render stages of a composite - simply save a script from Shake and load it into Tremor, or the other way around.
I will distinguish between things you can do in the Tremor-style interface and things you can only do with the Tremor product (capture, EDL management, web browsing). For the 1.0 version of Tremor, this document will be sparse, only pointing out the differences with standard Shake operations. For more information on node creation, Viewer buttons, Time View, Curve Editor, etc, see the standard Shake Interface section and tutorials.
The Tremor Interface |
Launching the
Tremor Interface
Tremor: Tremor will always launch with the Tremor interface.
Shake: You can launch Shake in the Tremor interface by using the flag -gui 1, for example:
shake -gui 1
If you are using NT, you can append this command into your Shortcut by using the Right Mouse and selecting Properties and editing the Target field to say something like:
C:/Program\ Files/Shake/shake.exe -gui 1
This will give you something like this, minus the work-in-progress, of course:
The Tremor-style interface is designed for a minimum monitor width of 1600 pixels. Since Tremor ships with a HD monitor, this isn't a problem. For Shake, you will have to up-res your monitor. For NT, select Start - Settings - Control Panel - Display - Settings. For SGI IRIX, jump to Customization - Interface Devices and Styles.
Windowing in
the Tremor Interface
The bottom half of the screen is devoted to parameters, global parameters, the Curve Editor and the Time View. The top left corner has the Node View, the Color Picker, and another Curve Editor. The top right corner has the Viewers, another Node View tab, and in Tremor only, the EDL manager and embedded Web Browser.
The center Function Bar gives you immediate access to your favorite functions, as well the different function categories and some operation buttons on the right side.
You can select the tab you want to look at by clicking on it, but there are two much cooler things you can do:
Hold the Tab key and drag to switch tabs |
![]() |
You can drag the center bar up and down by grabbing the bottom border of it and dragging:
You might notice there are no menus at the top of the screen. To access menu functions, use the Menu button on the right side of the Function Bar.
You can also quickly stow the interface, change your update modes, access undo/redo (of course, Ctrl+Z still works), and load and save scripts. The black light is an indication if proxies are on or not. If you have set a proxy, you can temporarily turn it off by pushing it. The green light is the rendering button. When it is green, Tremor is not processing.
The Function Bar in the center contains your Favorite function buttons on the top row, and the function category on the bottom row. You can call up a node from the Favorites, or hold the category button (i.e., Image, Color, Filter, etc) and select from other functions in that category.
If you have plugins installed (i.e., the Foundy, Ultimatte, etc), they may be offscreen to the right. You can scroll the center bar left and right with either the Middle button or Alt+Left button.
You can also create nodes in the Node View by clicking the Right mouse and selecting from the Nodes pulldown menus.
All nodes are modified by the standard hotkeys:
Action | Does |
Click on a Function Button | Attaches that node to the active node. It will insert it between that node and any childern. If multiple nodes are selected, it goes to the active last node viewed |
Alt+Click | Will send off a new branch |
Ctrl+Click | Will replace the current active node. |
Shift+Ctrl Click | Will create an unattached node. |
Nodes behave according to the standard Shake methods. See Interface - Node View
To set a node as a Favorite, use the following code in a ui.h file. For more information on ui.h files, see Customization.
nuiPushToolBox("Transform"); nuiAddToolboxFav("Move3D"); nuiPopToolBox();
Using the Viewers
Instead of Shake's floating Viewers, the Tremor-style interface has up to 4 pre-set Viewers. On the Viewer bar is a button to indicate how many Viewers are visible:
The 4 states of the Tremor Viewer Layout button: | ||||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The left-most Viewer is considered to be the Primary Viewer and is always the active Viewer into which nodes are loaded. To examine a particular node, click on the node's left side in the Node View.
To load an image into one of the Secondary Viewers, double click on that smaller window. Whatever is loaded in the Primary Viewer will be placed into that Secondary Viewer. To switch two images, Ctrl+double click on the Secondary Viewer - this will switch whatever is in the Primary Viewer with what is in the Secondary Viewer you double-click on.
Ctrl+double click on a small Secondary Viewer... |
|
...and it will swap that image with the Primary Viewer. |
|
The Tremor hardware also allows you to view whatever is in the Primary Viewer on a separate broadcast monitor. This cannot be done in Shake, even with the Tremor-style interface. There are two buttons to help your display:
Button | Action |
![]() |
This will display what is in the Primary Viewer into a broadcast monitor. However, this will slow down your interactive refresh rate when tuning images, which is especially noticeable when using the QuickPaint node. |
![]() |
Setting the button to this state will turn off the broadcast display, giving you a slightly better interactive refresh rate. |
The second button is to control how the image is displayed in the monitor. Tremor SD only can display in NTSC or PAL resolution, whereas Tremor HD displays at 1920x1080. Whenever you work with images that are not at these resolutions, you can control how the image is displayed in the broadcast monitor as well as how it is presented in the output Tremor render. This has no effect on normal FileOut renders.
Button | Action |
![]() |
Fit mode. This is the default mode. The image is resized to the broadcast resolution, and the aspect ratio is maintained. |
![]() |
Crop mode. If the image is larger than the display resolution, it is cropped off. If it is smaller, the image is centered and padded out with black to the broadcast resolution. |
![]() |
Squeeze mode. The image is resized into the broadcast resolution, filling the entire screen. Your original aspect ratio will not be maintained. |
One helpful feature in both Shake and Tremor, regardless of the interface style, is that you can easily switch the numbering from frames to timecode by hitting T in the Curve Editor, the Time Bar or the Time View:
Hit T to switch the Timecode display |
|
All other Viewer buttons follow the standard Shake rules. See Interface - Viewers for more information.
Editing Parameters
The Tremor-style interface has removed the sliders, and instead relies only on the textfields. You can tune them in several ways:
Action
|
Effect | |
Dragging the left mouse left and
right in the text field.
|
![]() |
This will act as a virtual slider, raising or lowering the number. A green bar at the bottom of the textfield indicates the general position of the number relative to its general range, but you can drag the number above and below these range limits. |
Ctrl+dragging the left mouse in the text
field..
|
![]() |
This is also a virtual slider, but with more precision. |
Dragging on the mini-slider below the
textfield.
|
![]() |
There is a miniature slider below each textfield. Drag on this to quickly take the value to the minimum or maximum of the predetermined slider range. |
Double-clicking in the textfield. |
|
This will select the entire number - type a new number to replace it. It will also load it into the Expression window above the Function Bar on the left side where expressions can be added. |
Shift, Ctrl, or Alt + left/right arrow. | This will decrement or increment the number by a certain amount. Shift+left/right arrow will change it by 10x the normal increment (usually .1 by default), Ctrl+left/right arrow will change it by 1x, and Alt+left/right arrow will change it by .1x the normal increment. |
All other behaviors correspond to the standard Shake buttons. See Interface - Parameters for more information. Of particular interest are the Color Pickers.
Capturing, Reviewing, and Recording Video Footage |
The EDL Manager
To capture video footage, you must first specify the timecode of tape that you want to capture. You can do this manually (see below under Capturing Video Footage), or you can read in an edit list with pre-set time code for each shot using the EDL Manager. The EDL Manager is only available in Tremor.
The EDL Manager has three windows: The VTRIn View, the Reel View, and the EDL windows. Both the VTRIn and Reel Views are on one sub-tab, and each loaded EDL is placed in its own individual tab.
Once the EDL is loaded, you can import individual clips or the entire EDL:
You can either use the individual VTRIn nodes to capture your data, or you
can batch capture entire sequences by hitting .
This will prompt you, in alphabetical reel name order, followed by sequential
time, to load appropriate cassettes to be captured.
The VTRIn and Reel View
The top window is the VTRIn View, giving you a list of each VTRIn node and its status. If you select a node here, it will highlight in the Node View, and vice-versa.
The bottom window is the Reel View associated with the EDLs, and also returns information regarding what is captured, duration, etc.
Capturing Video Footage
To capture footage, you use an Image - VTRIn node. Here is the basic outline:
You have two sources for the footage: the raw video footage on tape, and captured footage on disk. The VTRIn will display if the material is captured or not. When the footage is captured, it is stored in the TremorMedia directory. It is placed in a subdirectory according to ReelName/ClipName/ClipName.#####.yuv. When it is stored as a yuv, you can play it back in real time either from tape or from disk. You can therefore theoretically convert any images to yuv and store them according to the naming convention, have the appropriate timecode and play them back in realtime. However, it is probably easier to use the VTROut node - see below.
When capturing footage, the signal passes through the card and onto disk first, then to the broadcast monitor, and finally to the interface display. To maintain playback rate, we drop the interface display to 1/4 resolution for HD footage. 601 is at full resolution. Because the hardware and software are separated, you can zoom in and pan the image before capturing - the interface display does not affect the captured footage.
The VTR nodes have two sets of buttons on the Viewer:
Button | Action |
![]() |
Video mode: When the button is set to this, you are reading the signal from the deck, not from the disk. You have VTR controls and status indicators. |
![]() |
Disk mode: The image is being read from disk. You can play back the sequence only, or purge the data from disk. |
When in Video mode, you have several sets of buttons.
The first button
indicates if the sequence is captured or not - there is no action on the button,
it simply indicates its status.
The second set of buttons are VTR controls. You will have to verify that your VTR is on Remote. There is a status indicator on the Viewer to indicate this.
The buttons are Eject, Rewind, Play Backwards, Stop, Play, Fast Forward, Pause, and a Record Indicator. Note this is not the actual record button, just an indicator if you are recording while using the VTROut button.
The next set of buttons are the Jump to Mark In, Mark In, Mark Out, and Jump to Mark Out buttons. When the cursor is over the Viewer, you can also hit I and O to set your in and out points.
Once the points have been set, the duration is automatically calculated. If you change the duration in the Parameters Tab, the outTimecode parameter will update the change.
The next set of buttons are status indicators, showing the if you are in shuttle or jog mode, if the deck is on local or remote, if a tape is in the deck, and if there is sound signal.
You can scrub on the timecode display to shuttle through the tape:
Reviewing and Rendering Footage
You can play back your footage with either the VTRIn node, or by attaching a VTROut node. The reason you would want to use the Tremor playback as opposed to the Time Bar or a Flipbook is that you can have a clip as long as you want and it will play in realtime with low memory requirements.
With VTRIn, you can only play back the captured footage. Make sure your are in Disk mode and hit the Play button on the Viewer:
You can play back any other node type by attaching a VTROut
node to it and hitting the Render button
on the Viewer. This will distribute the render to your background machines.
When you do this, it will check the database to determine if the footage needs to be rendered. If not, it will playback immediately. If it does need to be rendered, it will take the Global's timeRange and the Time Bar Increment and start to render the sequence as yuv files into the Tremor disk array. For example, if you timeRange is 1-100 and your Time Bar increment is 2, you will render 50 frames, from 1 to 99. If you have an increment in the timeRange as well, the increment will apply itself to that increment, i.e., if you have 1-100x2 and an increment of 3, it will render frames 1, 7, 13, etc. When it is complete, it will play back in real time. A couple of things to note:
Keep in mind that the Tremor render only calculates the images as yuv files.
This means that only RGB channels are rendered, and they are at 601 or HD resolution.
To render normal files, use the standard Shake rendering procedure of attaching
an Image - FileOut, setting your Global timeRange and hitting
the Flipbook
button, or use the Render Queue to automatically distribute the render among
your background machines.
The other two buttons on the VTROout panel are:
This will
play the last clip, bypassing the database validity check
This will
save your sequence to disk and automatically create a VTRIn to read it
back in. This will greatly help you when working with multiply sequences.
Recording Video Footage
To place footage back on to tape, you use a VTROut node. The basic sequence works like this:
Video Hardware Definitions
Near the bottom of the <ShakeDir>/include/nreal.h file is a series of settings to specify the video hardware type you are using:
sys.videoHardwareType = "DVS"; sys.videoHardwareMode = "NTSC"; sys.videoHardwareSyncMode = "A-Genlock"; sys.VTRCapturePreroll = "00:00:02:00"; sys.VTRRecordPreroll = "00:00:03:00"; sys.VTRRecordEditLag = 5 sys.fastMediaPath = "F:/TremorMedia";
Setting | Default | Notes |
sys.videoHardwareType
|
"DVS"
|
Video mode: When the button is set to this, you are reading the signal from the deck, not from the disk. You have VTR controls and status indicators. |
sys.videoHardwareMode
|
"NTSC" See Below, Table of videoHardwareModes |
This hardware mode for output. See Below, Table of videoHardwareModes |
sys.videoHardwareSyncMode
|
"A-Genlock" Possible choices: "Internal"
"External" "A-Genlock" "D-Genlock" |
This determines the synchronization method used by the video hardware. In any mode but "Internal", the DVS hardware requires an external reference connected to the appropriate input. A-Genlock = Analog Genlock |
sys.VTRCapturePreroll
|
"00:00:02:00" (seconds)
|
When capturing from the VTR, this determines the duration of the preroll. Tremor insists that the VTR obtain servo lock to guarantee correct frames on the input. If the VTR cannot lock in time for the playback, the capture will fail. You may then try increasing this value to instruct Tremor to cue the deck earlier before attempting the capture. |
sys.VTRRecordPreroll
|
"00:00:03:00" (seconds)
|
When recording to the VTR, this determines the time of the preroll. See VTRCapturePreroll above. |
sys.VTRRecordEditLag
|
5 (frames)
|
When recording to the VTR, this is the number of frames required by the VTR to enter record mode. To determine this value for your VTR, set this value to zero, perform a recording, and note the difference between the record in time desired, and the actual first frame recorded. This value is the edit lag. If the edit lag is incorrectly set, material will be recorded at the wrong place on the tape. |
sys.fastMediaPath
|
"F:/TremorMedia"
|
This is the default path on to which the Tremor captured material is stored and read. Use a forward slash / to separate directories. This can be placed anywhere, but should be a very fast disk or capture and record may fail. |
Table of videoHardwareModes:
sys.videoHardwareMode = "NTSC";
For TremorHD, the format follows
HD<Lines>{p,sF,i}<frameRate>
p = Progressive
sF = Progressive segmented frame
i = Interlaced
If using a Sony HDW-F500 HDCAM VTR in progressive modes, use the corresponding "sF" video hardware modes, for example HD1080sF24, not the "p" modes.
Setting | Deck Settings |
System
|
"NTSC"
|
SD
|
|
"PAL"
|
SD |
|
"HD1080p2398" |
HD
|
|
"HD1080sF2398" | Sony HDW-F500 in 23.98 PsF mode |
HD
|
"HD1080p24" |
HD
|
|
"HD1080sF24" | Sony HDW-F500 in 24 PsF mode |
HD
|
"HD1080i25" | Sony HDW-F500 in 25/50Hz Interlaced mode (50i) |
HD
|
"HD1080p25" |
HD
|
|
"HD1080i2997" | Sony HDW-F500 or HDW-500 in 29.97/59.94Hz Interlaced mode (59.94i) |
HD
|
"HD1080p2997" |
HD
|
|
"HD1080sF2997" | Sony HDW-F500 in 29.97 PsF mode |
HD
|
"HD1080i30" | Sony HDW-F500 or HDW-500 in 30/60Hz Interlaced mode (60i) |
HD
|
"HD1080p30" |
HD
|
|
"HD1080sF30" | Sony HDW-F500 in 30 PsF mode |
HD
|
Render Queue
Setup
Tremor Machine, Windows NT/2000:
Render Node (Linux)
...and it's just that simple.