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.
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.
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. | ![]() |
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.
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 | ![]() |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. | ![]() ![]() |