Apple Shake 4 User Manual
Page 25
Chapter 1
An Overview of the Shake User Interface
25
Tool Tabs
The Tool tabs contain groups of nodes, organized by function. Nodes you click in these
tabs are added to the node tree. For example, to add a Keylight node, click the Key tool
tab, and click the Keylight node. The Keylight node then appears in the node tree. If you
right-click a node in any of the Tool tabs, you can choose to insert that node into the
node tree in a variety of different ways, using the shortcut menu.
The Tool tabs area can also display the Curve Editor, Node View, or Time View.
The Time Bar Area
The Time Bar area, at the bottom of the Shake window, displays the currently defined
range of frames. Three fields to the right of the Time Bar show the displayed number of
frames in the Time Bar (not the time range), the current position of the playhead, and
the Increments (Inc) in which the playhead moves. To the right of these fields, the
Viewer playback controls let you step through your composite in different ways.
Command and Help Lines
Underneath the Time Bar area are two additional fields. The Command Line field lets
you enter Shake script commands directly, effectively bypassing the graphical interface.
The Info field provides immediate information about interface controls that you roll the
pointer over.
Parameters Tabs
The two Parameters tabs can be set to display the parameters within a selected node.
You can load two different sets of parameters into each of the two Parameters tabs. The
Globals tab to the right contains the parameters that affect the behavior of the entire
script (such as proxy use, motionBlur, and various interface controls).
Curve Editor
The Curve Editor is a graph on which you view, create, and modify the animation and
Lookup curves that are associated with parameters in the nodes of your script. In
addition to adding and editing the control points defining a curve’s shape, you can
change a curve’s type, as well as its cycling mode.
For more information on using the Curve Editor, see Chapter 10, “
Color Picker
The Color Picker is a centralized interface that lets you assign colors to node color
parameters by clicking the ColorWheel and luminance bar, clicking swatches from a
color palette, or by defining colors numerically using a variety of color models. You can
also store your own frequently-used color swatches for future use in the Palette.
For more information on how to use the Color Picker, see “