Apple Shake 4 - Manual (Page 326)

326 Chapter 11 The Flipbook, Monitor Previews, and Color Calibration
Use the following formula to determine the amount of required memory:
width * height * channels * bytes per channel * images = bytes
For example, a single 1024 x 768 RGB 8-bit (1 byte) per channel image is:
1024 * 768 * 3 * 1 = 2359296 bytes
Or, it is approximately 2.4 MB per frame.
To convert from bytes to megabytes (MB), divide by 1024 two times (1024 equals the
number of bytes per kilobyte). Thankfully, all operating systems come with calculators.
For a rough approximation, drop the last 6 digits.
Note: An 8-bit image is 1 byte, a 10- or 16-bit image is 2 bytes, and a float image is 4 bytes.
Creating a Disk-Based Flipbook
Available on Mac OS X systems only, the Render Disk Flipbook command launches a
disk-based Flipbook into QuickTime. This approach has several advantages over normal
Flipbooks. For example, the Disk Flipbook allows you to view very long clips and to
attach audio (loaded with the Audio Panel in the main interface).
Note: Real-time playback performance varies depending on your system hardware.
After viewing the Flipbook, you can write out the sequence as a QuickTime file and
bypass the need to render the sequence again.
Customizing the Flipbook
The following arguments have been added to the Flipbook executable as global
plugs. This lets you specify an external Flipbook to come up as the default. Specify
these plugs using a .h file in the startup directory. The global plugs and their default
values are:
gui.externalFlipbookPath = "shkv"; // the flipbooks name -- this should
include the full path
gui.flipbookStdInArg = "-"; // instructs the flipbook to take data from
StdIn
gui.flipbookExtraArgs = ""; // allows you to enter any extra arguments the
flipbook needs.
gui.flipbookZoomArg = "-z"; // sets the zoom of the flipbook
gui.flipbookTimeArg = "-t"; // the time range argument
gui.flipbookFPSArg = "-fps"; // the frames per second argument
If the specified external Flipbook doesn’t support one of these arguments, setting its
value to an empty string ("") prevents that value from being passed to it.