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Apple assumes no responsibility with regard to the performance or use of these products. 1 Contents Preface 7 7 8 8 11 11 12 16 19 24 24 26 31 33 34 37 40 41 43 47 47 48 50 55 66 71 75 80 91 91 92 Welcome to Shake 4 The Tutorial Lessons Installing the Tutorial Media Mac OS X Notes Shake Basics Tutorial Summary A Tour of the Basics Loading Images Viewing Images, Parameters, and Channels Working With Windows Launching a Flipbook Compositing Elements Setting Resolution Filtering and Masking Tuning Parameters Working With Layer Nodes Transforming an Image Fading an Element Rendering a Sequence Intermediate Skills Tutorial Summary Inserting Nodes Into a Tree Grouping Nodes and Using SetDOD Using the Time View Creating Motion Blur Importing Photoshop Files Keyframe Animation and the Curve Editor Color Correction Depth Compositing Tutorial Summary Simulated Depth and 3D Compositing Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 3 93 98 102 107 111 121 125 Chapter 4 133 133 133 136 138 139 144 153 156 163 163 164 165 167 169 172 175 178 179 183 183 183 186 191 194 200 201 201 201 202 206 208 Working With Z Channels Creating Composites With ZCompose Color Correcting Premultiplied Images Fading With Distance 3D Compositing With the MultiPlane Node Animating a MultiPlane Camera Importing Camera and Animation Data Working With Expressions Tutorial Summary Creating the Fan Composite Creating a Light Source With RGrad Looping Frames in the Time View Using Local Variables and Expressions Simulating Volumetrics With RBlur Concatenating Color Adjustments Adding Motion Blur to Pre-Animated Elements Using Keylight Tutorial Summary Using Keylight to Pull a Key Testing the Mask With a Viewer Script Adjusting the Mask With Parameters Masking Color Correcting the Foreground Image Advanced Keylight Techniques Using fgBias to Remove Blue Spill Using a Holdout Matte Using Primatte Tutorial Summary The Basics of Pulling a Key in Primatte Inner Mechanics of Primatte Masking Primatte Spill Suppression in Primatte Compositing Outside of Primatte Tracking and Stabilization Tutorial Summary Tracking and Stabilizing Nodes Stabilizing an Image Sequence Converting Stabilization Data to MatchMove Data Using the MatchMove Node Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 4 Contents 215 218 Chapter 8 225 225 225 226 232 234 237 238 241 243 243 243 247 252 Position the Foreground Element Color Correct the Foreground Element Working With Macros Tutorial Summary What Is a Macro? Creating a Handmade Macro Saving and Testing the Macro Adding a Button to the Interface How to Set Slider Ranges Creating Macros With MacroMaker Creating Sliders in MacroMaker Creating Clean Plates Tutorial Summary Stitching Images Stabilizing and Stitching Background Plates Creating a Clean Plate With QuickPaint Chapter 9 Contents 5 6 Contents This guide includes hands-on tutorials, demonstrations, and explanations of Shake features and workflow. In addition to the fundamental topics, this guide also explains specialized topics, such as 3D compositing, expressions, keying, and tracking. Check the lesson summaries below for a quick overview of each tutorial. For further study, you'll want to explore the Shake 4 User Manual. This is a two-volume book (also available in PDF format from the onscreen Help menu and in the Shake/doc directory) that contains detailed information about color correction, keying and spill suppression, masking, transforms, premultiplication, bit depth, logarithmic color space, caching and optimization, and other Shake features. The Shake 4 User Manual also includes a helpful "Cookbook" chapter with additional tips and macros to improve your workflow and productivity. The Tutorial Lessons · Tutorial 1: "Shake Basics"--This tutorial introduces Shake through a series of common · · · · tasks, including loading and compositing images, tuning parameters, transforming images, adding masks, and rendering. Tutorial 2: "Intermediate Skills"--This tutorial shows how to optimize your workflow with the SetDOD node, and how to use the Shake Time View, and the Curve Editor. You will also learn how to add motion blur, how to color-match the elements in a composite, and how to import Photoshop files as layers in a composite. Tutorial 3: "Depth Compositing"--This tutorial demonstrates different methods for creating "real" and simulated depth in your composites. You'll start with Z channels and filtering options. Then you'll work with Shake's MultiPlane node. Tutorial 4: "Working With Expressions"--This tutorial shows how to generate animation with expressions, rather than keyframes. Tutorial 5: "Using Keylight"--This two-part lesson covers the basics of using the Keylight node: pulling keys, applying masking, creating holdout mattes, and performing spill suppression. Preface 7 Welcome to Shake 4 · Tutorial 6: "Using Primatte"--This lesson describes the basic use and mechanics of the Photron Primatte keying plug-in, as well as masking and spill suppression. · Tutorial 7: "Tracking and Stabilization"--This tutorial demonstrates the primary uses for Shake's tracking technology, including removing unwanted motion from an image sequence and "matchmoving" an element to the motion of another element in the composite. · Tutorial 8: "Working With Macros"--This tutorial demonstrates how to create reusable groups of commands, called macros. In this example, you'll set up a basic macro for a motion blur effect that is adjustable to any angle. · Tutorial 9: "Creating Clean Plates"--This tutorial demonstrates how to stitch images with the AutoAlign node, and how to use the SmoothCam node to stabilize footage. You will also use the QuickPaint node to create a clean background plate. Installing the Tutorial Media Before you continue with the tutorials, you need to install the tutorial media. The sample files for the lessons are located on the Shake Installation disk, in the Documentation/Tutorial_Media directory. Licensed users can also download these files from the Shake Installation website. · Installation CD: Copy the Tutorial_Media folder from the Documentation directory to your $HOME/nreal directory. · Online (Linux/IRIX Users): Contact your system administrator for the URL and password to access the download site for the Shake tutorial media. Note: You can install the tutorial media files anywhere you like, but the $HOME/nreal/ Tutorial_Media directory is used in this guide to simplify the process of instruction. Mac OS X Notes The following information applies to Shake on the Mac OS X platform: Using the Three-Button Mouse You must use a three-button mouse with Shake as many functions are not possible with a single- or two-button mouse. The middle scroll wheel commonly serves as the middle mouse button. Many commands in Shake require you to "middle-click." The Delete Key The Macintosh Delete key located below the F12 key is the equivalent of the Linux Backspace key; the Macintosh Delete key grouped with the Help, Home, and End keys is the equivalent of the Linux Delete key. 8 Preface Welcome to Shake 4 Important: Macintosh users should bear in mind that the Delete key used in Shake is not the key located below the F12 key but, rather, the one grouped with the Help, Home, and End keys. If you are using a smaller Macintosh keyboard without the second Delete, use Option-Delete (again, the key below F12). Keyboard Command Differences Between Platforms Some keyboard commands are different between the Mac OS X platform and the Linux or IRIX platform. In most cases in this documentation, the Macintosh keyboard command is cited first, followed by the Linux/IRIX command. Control vs. Command On the Mac OS X platform, you can use the Control or Command key interchangeably. For example, use Control-C or Command-C to copy an object. Launching Shake in the Terminal Mac OS X wraps up binaries and their contents into one icon in the Finder. Click the Shake icon in Mac OS X to launch Shake, or right-click the Shake icon to obtain menu options. For example, right-click the Shake icon and choose Show Package Contents from the shortcut menu to open the subdirectories. Alternatively, you can use the Terminal to navigate to shake.app/Contents/MacOS/ to find the actual binary files. Preface Welcome to Shake 4 9 10 Preface Welcome to Shake 4 1 Shake Basics 1 This tutorial introduces Shake through a series of common tasks, including loading and compositing images, tuning parameters, transforming images, adding masks, and rendering. Tutorial Summary · · · · · · A tour of the basics Loading images Viewing images, parameters, and channels Working with windows Launching a Flipbook Compositing elements 11 · · · · · · · Setting resolution Creating a new element Tuning parameters Working with layer nodes Transforming an image Applying a mask Rendering a sequence A Tour of the Basics In this tutorial you'll create a composite with images created at Big Sister's Watching, NY by Brandon Robinson and Melissa Graff. You'll start by layering the images for the composite. Then you'll incorporate additional elements for soft shadows and lighting. Before you begin, let's review some basic Shake operations. Launching Shake You can launch the Shake application from your desktop or from the command line, assuming the Shake binary files are located in the directory created for Shake during installation. To launch Shake: On the Mac OS X platform, browse to the application directory and double-click the Shake icon, or simply click the Shake icon in the Dock. On the Linux or IRIX platform, enter the following in any shell: shake m m For you Mac users, the Shake icon may appear on the Dock. If it's not there, then you can drag it to the dock from the application directory. You can also launch from the Mac OS X Terminal, but you must type the complete path to Shake (that is, Applications/Shake/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake), or set the appropriate environment variables. Note: For more information, see "Environment Variables for Shake" in Chapter 14 of the Shake 4 User Manual. 12 Chapter 1 Shake Basics Using the Shake Panels When you start Shake, you'll notice that the interface is divided into four panels: Viewer, Node View, Tools, and Parameters. Each image process in Shake is accomplished by connecting items, called nodes, as a tree structure in the Node View. The result is an overview of the images, layers, and processes in your project. Shake projects are called scripts because the results are stored as a list of sequential commands in a script file. So, where do the nodes come from? The Tools panel lists the objects and functions-- the nodes--that you can add to your script. The Viewer shows the output of a selected node in the script. The Viewer is also the place where you use interactive controls to transform images and create shapes. In the Parameters panel, you edit a selected node or change project settings on the Globals tab. And, speaking of tabs, three of the four panels are divided into a number of tabs that allow access to commands, additional parameters, and other functional windows, like the Curve Editor and Audio Panel. You don't need to know all the screen controls at this point, but you'll probably have so ...