• Launching The Flipbook
• Flipbook Controls
• Memory Requirements

Launching From the Command Line

Call up the files, either by relative or absolute paths. Indicate a time range and a frame placeholder, which is either # for padded numbers or @ for unpadded numbers. For multiple padding that is not 4-places, use the @ or # signs multiple times, that is, ##### = 00001, 00002, and so on.

For example, in doc/pix/vp/vanilla:

shake vanilla.#.iff -t 1-56

shake vanilla.#.iff -t 1-56x2

Launching From the Interface

• In the Globals, set your timeRange, typically something like 1-50, 1-50x2
• Launch the flipbook by loading the node you want to test into the main Viewer and pressing the flipbook button

or

• Select the node you want to render and press the right mouse in the Node View and select Render Selected Node
  
  
• To play the images, press . (consider it the > key).
• To play backwards, press , (consider it the < key).
• To stop playing, press the Space Bar.
• To step through the animation, use the Left and Right Arrow keys.
• To scrub through the animation, use Shift+Left mouse.
  
  LINUX: use Shift+Ctrl+Left mouse.
  
  
• To ping-pong the playback, press Shift+>
• To play through once, press Ctrl+>
• To increase or decrease the frame rate, press the numeric pad + or -
  Note that the frame rate is displayed on the title bar. If you are getting realtime playback, it says "Locked", otherwise, it slows down the playback.
  
  LINUX: Information is displayed on the image itself when pressing the O key.
  
  
• For realtime playback, press T.
  This drops frames if it can't maintain the desired speed. If it is dropping frames, it tellsyou what percent is being dropped.
• To get toggle double buffering available on IRIX, press D.
  This reduces flickering.

You still have access to the viewing functions found in the Viewer (view planes, coordinates and values, zoom in and out, etc.).

Viewer Controls

Function	Key	Notes
Play	.	Think of it as the > key.
Play Backwards	,	Think of it as the < key.
Stop Playing/Rendering	Space Bar
Continue Rendering	/
Step Through Animation	left/right arrow
Scrub	Shift+left mouse left and right
Ping-Pong	Shift+>
Play Once	Ctrl+>
Increase/decrease frame rate	+/0 on numeric keypad	The rate is displayed in the title bar, with the left number being actual fps, and the right being target fps.
Realtime toggle	t	Drop frames.
Double buffer (SGI only)	d

Memory Requirements

Realtime playback is a function of RAM, processor, image size, series length and graphics card. Because Shake loads images into memory and then plays them back, you will not be able to do a real time playback of 100 2k resolution images. Sorry. You generally have no problem with video resolution, and you even get a good rate with 1k res files, given enough RAM and a decent graphics card.

If you want to know exactly how many bytes you are going to need to keep a clip in memory, you can follow this oh-so-simple formula:

width * height * image planes * bytes per channel * images

For example, a 2056x1546 RGB 8-bit (1 byte) per channel image would be:

2056 * 1546 * 3 * 1 = 9535728 bytes or around 9 MB per image. Eek.

To convert from bytes to megabytes (MB), divide twice by 1024. For a rough approximation, just drop the last 6 digits. Luckily, for us non-Braniacs, all operating systems come with calculators.