Using the Viewer


This section gets you up to speed on using the Viewer.

General Viewer Controls

Now that you have something to look at, I can explain a bit about the Viewer workspace. The Viewer workspace is the area where you view your images, create flipbooks, and evaluate your composites. You can create as many Viewers as you want, each dynamically updated in any channel you choose for any node you choose. This means that you can watch the behavior of a function as it modifies an alpha channel in both a Viewer looking at the alpha channel and a second Viewer looking at the composite itself.

The Viewers take up memory, so if you are rendering an image, you might want to close your higher-resolution Viewers. Additionally, the more Viewers you have active, the slower the display rate will be. If you are getting strange Viewer behavior, free up some memory by deleting the Viewers and create a new one by pressing the N key.

1.

Experiment with some of the general window controls in the Viewer:

  • Iconify the Viewer.

  • Fit the Viewer to the image (or press Control-F).

  • Fit the Viewer to the desktop (or press Shift-F).

  • Close the window.

    To reopen the Viewer for the sharks node, choose Viewer > New Viewer.

  • Fit the image to the Viewer (or press F)This may result in noninteger zooming; for example, zoomed not x2 but x2.01, which may cause inaccuracies in the display of the image due to the inherent rounding of pixel rows.

  • Reset the Viewer zoom and pan to default (or press Home)This centers and sets the zoom to a 1:1 ratio.

  • Broadcast MonitorWhen selected, the broadcast monitor mirrors the selected node (the node displayed in the Viewer). Before selecting this button, you should first choose your footage format from the Format parameter of the Globals tab of the Parameters workspace.

2.

Drag the cursor while pressing the left mouse button in the image area to see X, Y, R, G, B, and alpha values in the help field and the title bar.

3.

Toggle the Channel Viewer using the left mouse button.

The Channel Viewer toggles between the full-color image and the alpha channel. You can view the individual channels by first placing your cursor over the image area and pressing the R, G, B, A, and C keys to toggle between the red, green, blue, alpha, and color, or RGB, view planes. If you can't remember those five keystrokes, click and hold your left mouse button over the Channel Viewer to make your selection.

Tip

Channel Viewer hot key: The 2 key cycles through the channels R, G, B, A, and RGB. Pressing 2 toggles forward and Shift-2 toggles backward. The cursor must be in the Viewer window.

4.

Press N ("new" Viewer) when the cursor is over the Viewer to clone it.

5.

Place the cursor over the Viewer again and press the spacebar.

This expands the Viewer workspace to full screen so that it is easier to see both Viewers.

6.

Place your cursor over each Viewer and press Control-F to fit the Viewer to the image.

7.

In one of the Viewers, toggle the Channel Viewer to the alpha channel, or you can just press A.

You can move a Viewer around by grabbing its title bar. You can also resize it by grabbing its borders. You can have as many Viewers as you want, and each is "live," assuming that the Update mode is not set to No Update (see the following section).

Viewer Update Modes

When you create a Viewer, it is assigned to the active node, so the Viewer will show something new every time you create a new node or click to evaluate a different node. To create a new Viewer window, choose Viewers > New Viewer.

Note

You can lock a Viewer to a node by double-clicking the Viewer and then clicking the node you want. Once you have assigned a Viewer to a specific node, you should create another Viewer to handle the duty of viewing the active node.


1.

Adjust the Time Bar, and you can see that both Viewers update.

2.

Try out the different Update modes in conjunction with adjusting the Time Bar. Click and hold the Update icon with the left mouse button and then select any of the three Viewer Update modes.

  • Normal Update modeImage is displayed when the frame render is finished.

  • Scrolling Update modeImage is presented as it is displayed, scrolling upward. Use this when you have large images and slow updates.

  • No Update modeNo update until you toggle to Normal mode.

    To kill the update of a Viewer, press the Esc key.

    Tip

    The 3 key cycles the Update mode. Pressing 3 toggles forward and Shift-3 toggles backward. The cursor must be in the Viewer window.

3.

Make sure the Update mode is returned to Normal.

4.

Close the second Viewer that's showing the alpha channel, and move the remaining Viewer to the bottom-left corner of the screen.

5.

Press the spacebar to return the Viewer workspace to normal size.

6.

Place your cursor over the Viewer and press Shift-F to fit the Viewer to the desktop.

Now, you should be back to normal.

Comparing Images

If you want to compare two different images or two different planes within the same image, you can use the Compare buttons in the Viewer. In this example, you will compare the RGB planes with the alpha plane. The A and B tabs on the bottom left of the Viewer let you switch between two images.

1.

Make sure the A tab is on top, and click the left side of the sharks node in the Node View.

Note

In case you were wondering, the 1A next to the node signifies Viewer 1, Tab A.

This simply reloads the same image into the same Viewer and is therefore redundant.

2.

Click the A tab once to cycle it to the B tab.

3.

Click the left side of the shark node again. This loads the same image into B tab.

4.

With the cursor in the Viewer, press the A key, or toggle the Channel Viewer to the white dot icon to view the alpha channel.

5.

You may have to click Home to center the image.

6.

You can toggle between the A and B tabs to compare the images.

Tip

The 1 key cycles the A and B tabs. Pressing 1 toggles forward and Shift-1 toggles backward. The cursor must be in the Viewer window.

7.

If you click and hold the C at the bottom of the Viewer, the Compare mode button options pop up.

8.

Select the Vertical Compare button.

9.

Now grab the tiny little gray C icon in the lower-right corner of the Viewer and drag it left and right, revealing the two images.

You can also use a horizontal or fading Compare mode.

Tip

The 7 key cycles the Compare modes. Pressing 7 toggles forward, Shift-7 toggles backward. The cursor must be in the Viewer window.

10.

Return Compare to Normal mode.

Note

Make sure you turn off the Compare mode before continuing, because you may accidentally leave the mode looking entirely at the B image when you are working on the A image.

Creating Flipbooks to Play Back Clips

Can you just tell me how to play the darn clip already? All right, all right. To play the shark clip, you need to create a flipbook. A flipbook is a RAM-based image player that loads a clip into memory so it can be played back in real time. The first step is to set the frame range.

1.

Click the Globals tab in the Parameters workspace.

This will load the Global parameters into the Parameters workspace.

2.

Under timeRange, type 1-65 to load 65 frames.

1-65x2 means every other frame, 1-65x3 every third frame, and so on.

3.

Now click the Flipbook icon at the bottom of the Viewer to launch a flipbook of your clip with the desired frame range.

Tip

If you click and hold the right mouse button over the Flipbook icon, a Render Parameters page pops up, letting you specify your frame range and other settings. You can then set the frame range exactly as just described. Otherwise, it will use the Global settings you have specified.

4.

You can press the right angle bracket (>) key at any time while the flipbook is loading to see the clip play. Shake will continue to render and add frames in the background.

If you press stop (the spacebar) before the flipbook is done loading, you can resume the load by pressing the slash (/) key. Given enough RAM, you can load as many flipbooks as you want.

5.

Experiment with some of the flipbook shortcut keys listed at the end of this lesson.

6.

When you are done playing around with the flipbook controls, close the flipbook by clicking the X in the top-left corner of the flipbook window.

Congratulations! You've made it through Lesson 1.

7.

Exit Shake by choosing Shake > Quit Shake. Click No when prompted whether to save the script.




Apple Pro Training Series. Shake 4. Professional Compositing and Visual Effects
Apple Pro Training Series. Shake 4. Professional Compositing and Visual Effects
ISBN: 321256093
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 156

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