The Parameters View

The Parameters Tabs are where you access the controls for the nodes and for the global script parameters.

Loading the Parameters1 and Parameters2 Tabs

Click on the right side of a node to see its parameters in the Control workspace. Also, if you double-click on the left side of a node, you load the parameters, and visualize that node in the active Viewer.

To load a second set of parameters into the Parameters2 Tab, Shift+click on the right side of a node.

 

 

Tweaker Windows.

You can also tune a parameter by selecting the node and hitting Ctrl+T - this will open a floating Tweaker window that you can place where you want:

Getting Global Parameters

Double-click on an empty spot in the Node View to load the Global Parameters into the Control workspace, or click on the Globals tab in the Parameters workspace.

 

Editing Parameters

You can change the value of a parameter in several ways:

  • Move the slider if there is one.
 
  • If a parameter has an expression, it will have a plus sign next to it. Click it to open the expression field. An expression can be an animation curve, linking to a different parameter, or a formula to calculate something. To clear a non-curve expression, just move the slider, enter a new value in the text field, or use Right Mouse - Clear Expression
  • Ctrl+drag in the text window to use virtual sliders. If you are using a Wacom tablet, you should go to the Global Parameters and turn on virtualSliderMode and set virtualSliderSpeed to 0.
  • Some parameters have toggle-buttons associated with them. You can either enter a value, or hit the toggle button. We have included the numeric values in the text field so that they can be animate

 

  • The clock icon is to load parameters into the Curve Editor. When this is ticked, the parameter is displayed in the Curve Editor. When it is off, it is not displayed in the Editor.

  • You can use Tab/Shift+Tab to advance or retreat into adjacent text fields.

Color Pickers

 

 
  • Some parameters have Color Pickers associated with them. There are several ways to use the Color Picker buttons:

    -The first way is to just hit it - the Color Picker Tab will open up, and you can select your tab from the color wheel.

    -The second way is to open up the + sign and use the sub-parameters. The first row is a slider to modify one channel which you select - (R)ed, (G)reen, (B)lue, (H)ue, (S)aturation, (V)alue, (T)emperature, (M)agenta-Cyan, (L)uminance. Moving the slider will calculate in that channel, but convert the numbers back to RGB.

  • You can edit the individual channels with expressions in the subtree.

    -The third way is to keep the subtree closed, and use the Color Button itself as a virtual slider. Using the channel buttons as the keyboard guide, hit the key and drag left or right on the Color button. For example, in the illustration, I hit press G down and drag, and the green channel increases or decreases.

To gang your color sliders together, use V+drag, since V is the Value.

Textfield Color Coding

 

 

  • Blue textfield: If a parameter textfield is blue, it indicates there is either an expression or animation attached to it. You can hit the plus sign to the left of the parameter name to open up the expression and edit it.

  • Rose textfield: If a parameter textfield is rose, it indicates you have made an error in the expression. The error will be printed in the shell window that you opened Shake with.

  • Yellow textfield: If a parameter textfield is yellow, it indicates a temporary value. This occurs when you put animation on a parameter, and then change a value without autokey being on. Therefore, when you jump to another frame, that value will be lost.

 

Animating Parameters

You can animate a parameter by turning on the Autokey button for that parameter. When it is on, you will be entering key frames when you change the value. Move the time slider to a different frame and change the value to enter a new key. You can also edit the curve in the Curve Editor by clicking on the clock icon.

Whenever a parameter is animated, markers will appear in the Time Bar to indicate that you have a key. If the key is on the parameter you have the cursor over, the notch will be green. If it is grey, it indicates that a different parameter from that node has a key.

To delete a key in the Parameter View, go to that frame, and hit the right mouse button over the parameter you want to delete a key from. Select Delete Current Key. You can also use the Viewer and Curve Editor to delete keys.

You can animate values using expressions along with the variable time. For example, time*2 would return twice the frame number as its value. sin(time)*5 would return a cycling range between -5 and 5. Have fun.


Using Expressions

Any parameter can use an expression in it. An expression is any non-numerical entry. Some expressions are extremely simple, like time. This will return the current frame value. Simply entering this will add a little plus sign by the parameter name. Hit this, and it will open a text field where you can edit your expression, time*2 for example.

If you move the slider on a field with an expression, it will blow away the expression. The only exception to this is when you have animation curves. These special expressions are recognized by Shake, and will not be removed when the slider is removed.

The second way to clear an expression is to hit the Right Mouse menu, and select Clear Expression.

Expressions can be loaded or saved to disk with the Right Mouse menu over the expression.

By selecting Create Local Variable, you can create extra sliders to be used to build complex expressions, but still allow interactive input. To remove an expression, use Delete Local Variable on the Right Mouse menu.

For a tutorial on using local variables and expressions, jump to the Fan Tutorial.

For a list of mathematical expressions and variables, jump to the Expression List.


Linking Parameters

You can link any parameter to any other parameter.

 

 

To interactively Copy a parameter from one field to another, drag on the name itself, and drag it to the name you want to copy a value or expression to. This will copy the value from the first field to the second.

You can also select the text in the actual text field (where it says 214 in this example) and hit Ctrl+C to copy the information. Go to the second textfield and paste it in with Ctrl+V.

This Drag and Drop behavior also works when dragging color from one Color Picker button to another.

 


To interactively Link two parameters together, Shift+drag on the parameter name you want to link to, and drag down to the parameter you want to link to the first parameter.

This will create an expression. Open up the subtree (the plus sign) and you will see that it links back to the first parameter by listing its name. In this example, it would say xPan.

You can also just type the name of the parameter. For example, in Move2D, you can link yScale to xScale by typing xScale in the yScale parameter. Actually, this is Shake's default value for yScale.

If the parameter is in a different node, you preface the link with nodeName.parameter. For example, if you have Add1 and Add2, you can link the green parameter of Add2 to the red parameter of Add1 by typing into Add2's green parameter:

Add1.red

You can use these as expressions as well, so you could type Add1.red*2 to double the return value.

If you want to link interactively using the Drag & Drop technique, load the one parameter into the Parameter2 tab, and then use the middle button to drag the Parameter2 tab into a different window pane.

You can also link to another time using the @@ signs. For example,

Mult1.red@@(time-2)

will link to Mult1's red parameter from two frame earlier.

A very useful feature of the Text and AddText functions is the ability link their text fields to any value from within any node. To differentiate a parameter from regular text in the field, surround it with a pair of curly brackets.

For example:

The current frame is: {time} 

will print:

 The current frame is: x 

where x will automatically update as each frame is rendered. In another example, I am printing out a value of a parameter from a color correction node using a Text node:

My red value = {Gamma1.rGamma}

it will print

My red value is 1.7 

assuming there is a node called Gamma1, and its rGamma value is 1.7.

These situations are typically called for when looking at physical film prints, and you are quickly able to ascertain the color correction settings used for any particular frame.

For a tutorial on linking parameters, jump to the Fan Tutorial.

 


Using Popup Menus

Some parameters have popup menus associated with them, like the filters on a transform or Blur, or the font type in Text.

First left click on the popup button to get the menu, then

  • If you right-click on a menu item, it will select that item and leave you in the menu. When you first click on the menu, hold down the left mouse key and move the cursor off of the menu. Then return the cursor to the menu and right click. This allows you to quickly test different parameters.
  • If you left-click on a menu item, you select that item and the menu is closed.

 


The Right-Mouse menu.

When you right-click on the top part of the Parameter View:

Function
Notes
Clear Tab Unloads the current parameters from the Tab
Create Local Variable This allows you to create a variable specific to that node. You use this when you want to drive one or more parameters off of other parameters. For example, on Brightness, you only have the value parameter. However, I want to create a random expression, rnd(time), and control it with an animation curve, a spline of 0 at frame 1 and 2 at frame 100. I therefore create two local variables, rnd_val and gain_crv, and assign them my values:

rnd_val = rnd(time)
gain_crv = JSpline(0,0@1,2@100)

I now assign my value parameter the expression rnd_val*gain_crv. You can visualize the result of the value expression in the curve editor, and load gain_crv in as well to modify it.

Delete Local Variable This will delete the local variable for the selected parameter.
Add Notes This is just a dedicated local variable in string format. It allows you to add notes to any node so you can remember what the hell you were thinking at the time.
Reset Values This will reset all values in the node to their default state.


When you right click on a Parameter:

Function
Keyboard
Notes
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. You can also copy the text and paste it into the Node View.
Load Expression   This will load an expression from disk. The expression should be in Shake format. You can use this if you have a translator for other package's curve types.
Save Expression   This saves the current expression as a text file to disk.
Clear Expression   This clears the current expression.
Clear Tab   Unloads the current parameters from the Tab
Create Local Variable   This allows you to create a variable specific to that node. You use this when you want to drive one or more parameters off of other parameters. For example, on Brightness, you only have the value parameter. However, I want to create a random expression, rnd(time), and control it with a animation curve, a spline of 0 at frame 1 and 2 at frame 100. I therefore create two local variables, rnd_val and gain_crv, and assign them my values:

rnd_val = rnd(time)
gain_crv = JSpline(0,0@1,2@100)

I now assign my value parameter the expression rnd_val*gain_crv. You can visualize the result of the value expression in the Curve Editor, and load gain_crv in as well to modify it.

Delete Local Variable   This will delete the local variable for the selected parameter.
Add Notes   This is just a dedicated local variable in string format. It allows you to add notes to any node so you can remember what the hell you were thinking at the time.