The Time View

The 2.2 Time View is a tool for viewing and arranging your nodes over time, and also gives you a list of each node in the script. Using the Time View, you can select nodes, evaluate nodes, and load parameters as you can in the Node View. You can also set in and out points for your clips, as well as shift start and end frames to change the duration of your clip. Finally, the Time View also allows you to alter looping behavior on clips.

The Time View modifies parameters that are found inside each Source, or Image tab, node. You can therefore modify timing parameters in the Time View, or by using the Parameters View.

Internally, each Source node is exactly as they were in earlier versions. However, as soon as timing changes are made, an internal node called IReTime is associated with the node. The IReTime node is saved into the script, but is invisible in the Node View. IReTime's parameters are controlled by the Source node's parameters and with the Time View.

The 2.2 Time View is the first stage of controls you will have over your clips and animation, and it will be continued to be developed in later releases.


Sorting Nodes in the Time View

Only nodes that are Image or nodes with more than one input are listed in the Time View to help cut down on clutter. If you turn on The Select Group switch will only list currently active nodes until you toggle the switch off.

Shifting Clips and In/Out points

When a Source clip is created, timing characteristics are attached to it in the Parameter View. Additional nodes on that clip will inherit the source clip's characteristics, but you will not be able to adjust the In/Out points of following nodes.

This is visually indicated here by the fact that the FileIn node bus2 has handles on the side, whereas the Brightness and Pan nodes merely have end markers which cannot be changed.

You can use any clip to evaluate a node, load its parameters, or toggle the ignore switch just as you would in the Node View. In this example, the parameters for bus2 are about to be loaded. Currently, the Pan1 node is evaluated and has its parameters loaded.

You can drag left or right on any clip to adjust its location in time - both the start and end frames will be shifted uniformly. All attached nodes will also be effected. Here, Brightness1 is being shifted, and the attached nodes bus2 and Pan1 will be adjusted with it.

When you shift a clip, all downstream and upstream nodes are effected. In this case, time2 and Clamp1 (in green) are composited over bus, Brightness1 and DelogRGB1. If you shift time2, the nodes Clamp1, Over1, and Blur1 are effected (note the identical end frames). The first three nodes are not.

When this is set to on, all curves attached to the shifted nodes get shifted as well, so the animation is carried with the shift. If it is off, the curves remain locked where they are.


 

You can adjust individual start and end frames by holding down Ctrl and grabbing the end of a Source node. In this example, we see that the bus2 clip is telling us several bits of information. First, the clip endFrame has been extended to frame 60, meaning there will be some information until frame 60. This endFrame corresponds to the endFrame parameter in the FileIn under the timing subtree.

The clip itself stops at frame 41, as set by the lastFrame handle. Whatever is between 41 and 60 is the domain of the outMode set by the FileIn. More on this in a moment, but here, because the bar is blue, we know that we are using Freeze as our outMode, so the last frame is repeated from frame 41 up until frame 60. After that, the clip is empty, and returns black. The last information is the 80 on the clip. This indicates the image that is being read from disk. Therefore we know at frame 40 the file image.80.iff (or whatever) is being read from disk, and is repeated until frame 60.

You can control the first and last frames of the clip itself that are being read from disk. If you just drag an end, both the from-disk clip ends and the clip duration will shift the same amount. If you hold Ctrl down while you drag, you only modify one. Here, we have adjusted the clip last frame back by 2, meaning we have trimmed the clip. Therefore frame 78 is the last frame read, not frame 80.

 

These controls are all stored in the FileIn parameters, with some of them under the timing subtree.

When you adjust the outer handles on a clip, you are adjusting the start- and endFrames. These determine at what frames the clip is visible.

When you adjust timeShift, you shift startFrame and endFrame as well. The v2.2 timeShift is not the same as the v2.1 TimeShift node - there is a 1 frame difference.

When you adjust the inner handles on a clip, you are adjusting the first- and lastFrame parameters. These determine what part of the clip on disk is read. You can therefore choose to only read frames 10 to 20 of a 100 frame clip by adjusting the first and lastFrame parameters



Notice that firstFrame and lastFrame reflect the frame range that is listed in the imageName parameter. If you change any of the parameters, the change will be reflected in the other parameters.
 
Source nodes like RGrad and Ramp have no preset range because they are generated by Shake. When you see these in the Time View, they will have infinity symbols on the edges to indicate that there is no end. To limit these nodes, grab the handles as you would other Source nodes.




Changing Repeat Modes

You may have an endFrame that is extends after your lastFrame parameter. For example, you may have a 20 frame clip that lasts from frames 1-100. The Repeat modes determine what happens in the extra 80 frames.

To access the modes, open up the timing parameters in the Source node. The behavior is controlled by the inMode and outMode settings, with inMode controlling frames between the startFrame and firstFrame, and outMode controlling frames between lastFrame and endFrame. The Modes are:

Black: Black frames are inserted here.
Freeze: The first/last frames are repeated
Repeat: The clip is repeated continually.
Mirror: The clip is repeated, then reversed and repeated, with the cycle repeating until the clip's limits.
MirrorInc As Mirror, but doesn't repeat start and end frame.

 




Reversing a Clip

As I mentioned at the beginning, the Time View isn't yet where we want it to be, but here is one extremely hacky way of reversing a clip:

Let's start with an example clip, say 40 frames:

Shift it by 40 frames forward (or backward, depending on your requirements)

Then take the startFrame and drag it back to frame 1:

Now set your inMode to Mirror, and the clip is reversed from frames 1 to 40. Hacky, but it works.



The Out point

There are two different views on what the out point of a clip should represent. For editors (usually), an out point is the frame at which there is no more image, and is therefore black. For a clip of 50 frames, the out point is therefore 51. To people working with CG, the out point is the last frame that they have to render, so the out point is 50. To add to the confusion, it must be kept in mind that even if you have 50 frames, you have meaningful information up to frame 50.99999..., because of motion blur calculations and field rendering.

With this is mind, we have different controls for how Shake handles the out point, as accessed by the right mouse menu in the Time View:

 

Toggle Const Point Display

This will turn on and off the constant display of the in/out point in the Time View
   
Toggle InOut Point Display If Toggle Const Point Display is turned on, then this will toggle which frame is counted as the out point, either the frame at which is become black, or the last frame on disk.

Toggle FileIn Trim This controls what happens when you drag the endFrame and lastFrame pass each other. In one mode, the buttons will push each other together. Here, as the lastFrame parameter gets pushed, it pushes the endFrame as well.


  In the other mode, both can slide without effecting each other. In this example, the lastFrame was pushed past the endFrame without effecting it. The bar is colored dark grey to indicate that it is connected to the clip, but is not considered in the clip's duration calculation.