Title Bar Functions and Buttons

File Menu

Function Notes
New Script
This will delete all nodes currently in the Node View. You can also hit Ctrl+A in the Node View to select all nodes and hit Delete.
Add Script This will call up the Browser to add in a second set of nodes to those currently in the Node View. The added nodes will be renamed if a naming conflict arises (i.e., FileIn1 becomes FileIn2). Global settings will be taken from the added script, as will the new script name.
Open Script This will call up the Browser to read in a script, replacing what is already in the Node View. You can also use the Open button on the Title Bar:
Reload Script This will reload the script listed in the top left of the title bar.
Save Script (Ctrl + S) This saves the script without prompting you for a script name. You can also use the Save button on the title bar:
Save Script As (Shift + Ctrl + S) This will prompt you for a new script name, and then save the script.
Save Interface Settings This will save your window layout into a file in your <UserDirectory>/settings file. If you call it defaultui.h, it will automatically be read next time you launch Shake. You can save the settings file anywhere, but it will not be read automatically unless it is in the settings directory.
Load Interface Settings This will load up an interface settings file from disk
Exit This exits the program. You can also use the standard OS exiting buttons on the upper-right corner of the interface.

 

Edit Menu

Function Notes
Undo (Ctrl +Z)
This will undo previous commands, up to 100 levels of undo. Layout, viewing, and parameter changes are saved in the Undo list. You can also press the Undo/Redo button: . You can change the amount of levels in your ui.h file. See Customize Shake for more details.
Redo (Ctrl + Y) If you have done an Undo and you haven't changed anything, you can hit Redo to go back to your previous settings. You can also hit the Undo/Redo button:
Find Nodes (Ctrl + F)

This will dynamically select nodes that match your criteria in the Search string.

  • Select by name. Enter the search string, and it will immediately activate nodes that match. For example, if you put just f, FileIn1 and Fade1 will be selected. If you enter fi, just the FileIn1 will be selected.

  • Select by type. This will select by node type. For example, enter Move, and all Move2D and Move3D nodes will be selected.

  • Select by expression. This 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. This will set case sensitivity.

 

Tools Menu

The Tools menu gives you a menu listing for each of the nodes in the Tools Tabs. You can also press the right-mouse on a Tool Tab (i.e., Image, Color, Filter, etc) to get a list of those tools.


Viewers Menu

Function Notes
Create Viewer
This will create a new Viewer in the Viewer area, automatically stretching it to fill the Viewer area. You can also hit the right mouse on a Viewer and select New Viewer, or just hit N on a Viewer.
Spawn viewer desktop This will launch a floating viewer window which can then be moved around independently of the interface. It is ideal for dual-monitor setups.



Render Menu

Function Notes
Render Flipbook
This will render a flipbook of whatever is in the current Viewer. It will first launch the Flipbook Parameters Window. The window allows you to override the Global parameters if you wish. To cancel the render, hit Esc on the flipbook window. See the Flipbook Manual for how to operate the Flipbook.
Render Select FileOut Nodes This will render any selected FileOut nodes in the Node View. Hit F in the Node View to frame all active nodes.
Render All FileOut Nodes This will render all FileOut nodes. To find these nodes, hit Ctrl + F in the Node View to Find nodes, and toggle over to type, and enter FileOut as the node type. All FileOut nodes will be selected so you can more easily find them.



Flipbook Parameters Window

Whenever you call up a render with the Render menu, or hit the right-mouse on the Viewer Flipbook button , you will launch the Flipbook Parameters Window. This window can override the Global settings for your render. Note that these settings are not saved into the script; they only control how the GUI is rendering. The window looks more or less like this:

parameter Notes
nodeName
This indicates the node to be rendered
fileFormat If you are writing to disk with the renderToDisk option, you can override the automatic formatting that Shake uses.
renderPath If you are writing to disk with the renderToDisk option, you can set the output path.
renderToDisk Unless the node you render is a FileOut node, your node will render into a RAM-based flipbook because this is set to Flipbook Only by default. You can alternatively render only to Disk, or to a Flipbook + Disk. with this parameter. When rendering to disk, it will take the nodeName as the filename, placing it in the renderPath. If you are rendering a FileOut node, it will still go to disk as specified in the FileOut node's parameters, regardless of the renderToDisk settings.
updateFromGlobals If this is on, you will always be rendering using the Global parameters to control proxy settings, frame range and quality settings. To modify any of these, you must turn off updateFromGlobals.
timeRange To modify this parameter, you must turn off updateFromGlobals. You can set a new time range using Shake's standard frame syntax, i.e., 1-100 will render 1 to 100, 10-20x2 will render frames 10, 12, 14, up to 20, etc.
proxyScale, proxyRatio, pixelScale, pixelRatio To modify this parameter, you must turn off updateFromGlobals. You can change the proxy settings with these buttons.
quality To modify this parameter, you must turn off updateFromGlobals. When this is set to lo (0), anti-aliasing will be turned off, resulting in a poorer quality image.
motionBlur, shutterTiming, shutterOffset To modify this parameter, you must turn off updateFromGlobals. These can be used to set new motion blur settings for quality, shutter exposure length, and the offset.
maxThread To modify this parameter, you must turn off updateFromGlobals. How many processors to devote to the render on a multiprocessor machine.

For more information on how to run the Flipbook, jump to Running the Flipbook.




Help Menu

function Notes
About Shake
Shows a swell graphic of the current release number, as well as contact information.
Documentation This will launch the documentation you are reading into a html browser. The docs are located at <ShakeDirectory>/docs/index.html
Support Form This will load a Support Form into a html browser. You can use this to report bugs, provide suggestions, get How-to advice, or (eek!) report documentation errors.
Nothing Real Home Page This loads up a browser with www.nothingreal.com in it.



Open/Save

Clicking on these buttons calls up the browser to either load a script or to save the current script with the same name. You can also use Ctrl+S to save the script quickly.

A backup script is stored automatically every 60 seconds in your <UserDirectory>/nreal/autoSave directory. You can jump to it quickly with the Browser's Directories pulldown menu.

This time interval can be changed in your ui.h files in include/startup/ui/something.h. The line would look like this:

script.autoSaveDelay = 60;

The 60 is time in seconds between saves. See Customize Shake for more details.

To save a script under a new name, use the File menu - Save As. This will prompt you for a script name.

To reload the same script, call up File - Reload. This will reload the script that you see on the Shake title bar.


Undo/Redo

You have 100 steps of Undo/Redo in Shake. You can press the button, or use Ctrl+Z to Undo as well.

Although we thought 100 was a pretty safe number of steps, you can change the amount of undo levels you keep by entering this line in one of your ui.h files:

gui.numUndoLevels = 100;

See Customize Shake for more details. Of course, if you have more than 100 mistakes, you probably shouldn't be in this business.

 

The Update Buttons

The Update Mode button, in the middle, has three modes:

  • Always: Shake always updates the scene when you change a parameter, including time.
  • Manual: Shake never updates the scene, including time, until you hit Update, the button on the left, or the left side of a node in the Node View, or the U key.
  • Release: Shake updates the scene when you release the mouse after changing any parameter, including time.

The Update button is used to manually update the scene, usually used when Update Mode is set to Manual.

 

The Proxy button will activate the use of proxy resolutions if you have changed proxyScale or pixelScale to a value of other than 1. If they are both 1, this button does nothing. When this is toggled off, it turns off the use of proxy images.


Title Bar Information

The title bar of the whole Shake window gives you current version data, as well as the current script name and the current proxy resolution.