• The Time View shares similiar functions with the Node View. You can select nodes in both windows. You can view nodes, load parameters, and ignore nodes by clicking the controls on the bars in the Time View.
• Turn on the Select Group button to load only the active nodes into the Time View.
• To scale the Time View, press Command or Control while holding down the middle mouse button, and drag left or right.
• To pan the Time View, hold down the middle mouse button and drag left or right.
Load into
Ignore node Press I to ignore.
To load the mitosis node into the Parameters tab, do one of the following:
m In the Node View click the right side of the mitosis node.
m In the Time Bar, click the parameters indicator on the mitosis bar.
The mitosis parameters appear in the Parameters tab.
Under the Source subtab , the firstFrame parameter is set to 1 and the lastFrame parameter is set to 35. These are the source frames read from the image sequence on disk.
Click the Timing subtab and you’ll see how the clip lines up with the Time Bar frames.
The inPoint is set to 1 and the outPoint is set to 36, which is one frame after the last frame in your clip.
Suppose you want to change where the clip begins in the Time Bar, but you don’t want to change the number of frames used from the clip.
To modify the clip’s position in the Time Bar:
m In the Time View, drag the middle of the mitosis bar to the right.
The entire clip moves to the right.
As you drag the mitosis bar, dark blue numbers appear outside the ends of the bar to show where the start and end frames of the clip line up with the Time Bar frames.
Check the Timing subtab, and you’ll see the new time shift indicated there also.
The first parameter, timeShift, shows the difference, if any, between the frame numbers of the clip and the frame numbers in the Time Bar. Positive numbers shift the clip forward and negative numbers shift the clip backward.
The next two parameters, inPoint and outPoint, correspond to the dark blue numbers
Start (In point) and end (Out point) frames for the sequence or clip Frame numbers where the In/Out points line up in the Time Bar
To extend the length of the mitosis clip:
1 In the Time View, press the Control or Command key and drag the right timing handle of the mitosis clip until the Out point (dark blue number) reads 101.
Pressing the Control or Command key while dragging a timing handle breaks the relationship between the disk clip and the duration of the clip in the composite. The newly extended area of the clip is calculated in one of several repeat modes. The default repeat mode—represented by a blue bar—is a freeze frame: Shake fills the expanded time range in the clip with a freeze frame of the last frame in the clip.
Note: When you drag a timing handle without pressing Control or Command, you extend the length of the sequence in the composite without modifying the extended area. In other words, if you drag a timing handle beyond the number of frames in the source clip, the output after the last frame in the source clip will consist of empty black frames.
For the purposes of this example, change the repeat mode from a freeze frame to a loop (or mirror) playback.
2 In the Timing subtab of the mitosis parameters, set the outMode control to Mirror.
The inMode and outMode parameters tell Shake what to do with a clip that is
extended beyond the number of frames available from the image sequence on disk. In this example, the animation wasn’t designed to loop, so use the Mirror outMode to repeat the frames in reverse order. In all, there are five repeat modes:
Button Mode Result
Black No frames repeat.
Freeze Last (or first) frame is held and repeated indefinitely.
You now have everything set up for the first original copy of our “little guys” element.
The next step is to make a copy of all the nodes for this element, and paste four or more copies to populate the composite.
To make copies of the elements:
1 In the Node View, select both the mitosis_group node and the Over1 node.
Note: To collapse the mitosis_group node, click the Expand/Collapse button on the right side of the group header.
2 Right-click in the Node View, then choose Edit > Copy from the shortcut menu.
Mirror The clip repeats, first in reverse order, and then forward, indefinitely. To provide a smooth transition, the first frame does not repeat between the loops.
InclusiveMirror The entire clip repeats, first in reverse order, and then forward, indefinitely.
Button Mode Result
3 Drag the selected nodes to the left in the Node View to make room for the copies.
4 Right-click in the Node View, then choose Edit > Paste from the shortcut menu (or press Control-V) to place the first copy.
5 Repeat Step 4 to paste at least three additional copies.
6 Using the illustration below as a guide, connect the copies to the rest of the node tree.