Shake - Text

Text

Function
The Text function calls on software that is basically identical to GL Render for character generation. You can type in your text, or use variables and links to insert characters, making it an ideal tool for generating slates.

You can use any TrueType (.ttf ) and Type 1 (PostScript, .pfa for ASCII and .pfb for binary) font. If an Adobe Font Metrics (.afm) file is present for the font (for example, you have MyFont.pfa and MyFont.afm), it is supported and provides kerning for the font. Shake first looks for fonts in its distribution directory, under fonts. You can also place them in a direct path by setting the environment variable NR_FONT_PATH. Finally, Shake also detects fonts placed in the standard directories for your OS:

Macintosh OS X: All “Installed” directories.
Linux: /usr/lib/DPS/AFM
IRIX: /usr/lib/X11/fonts/Type1

Text uses the Shake implementation of the GL Render. It allows you to not only manipulate the characters in 3D space (including X, Y, and Z position, rotation, and scaling), but also a camera field of view. Because of this, it is better to animate text within the Text (or AddText) function to ensure crisp, clean edges. Caveat: There is no motion blur.

To select a font in the interface:

In the Text node parameters, click (left mouse) the font pop-up menu.
To preview a font in the Viewer, right-click the font name in the list.
To select a font, click (left mouse) the font name in the list.

Note: For long font lists, click and drag the scroll tool to select a font from the list. You may also use middle-mouse scroll wheels.

You can also use these shortcuts at any time without any special formating:

Text Shortcut:	writes:
{parameter}	prints either the local or global parameter value, ie Script={scriptName} would write Script=My_Script.shk
{nodeName.parameter}	prints the parameter's value from a selected node, ie Red Val = {Mult1.red} could write Red Val = .6
\n	New line. Example: Hello\nWorld returns Hello World
%f	unpadded frame number
%F	4-digit padded frame number
%t	short non-dropframe time code: no 00: (if not needed)
%T	long non-dropframe time code: hr:mn:sc:fr
%tD	short dropframe time code: no 00: (if not needed)
%TD	long dropframe time code: hr:mn:sc:fr
%H	host name
%U	username
%c,%C	locale's center
%d	locale's day 01-31
%D	locale's abbreviated day name: Wed
%E	locale's full day name: Wednesday
%m	locale's month: 01-12
%M	locale's abbreviated month name: Nov
%N	locale's full month name: November
%x,%X	full date representation: mm/dd/yy
%y	year without century: 00-99
%Y	year as ccyy

Examples 1:

Text String	writes:
My name is Dufus	My name is Dufus
My name is %U	If login = Dufus: My name is Dufus
My name is %U.\nToday is %M. %d	My name is Dufus. Today is Nov. 12
Mult red = {Mult1.red}	Assuming the node Mult1 exists, and the red value is .46: Mult red = .46

To get special characters such as umlauts, copyright, etc, use octal and hexadecimal codes preceeded by a \. These codes can be found in unix with the man page for printf in its special characters section. I'm not sure how you find them in Windows. Anyway, for example, this was provided by our fine friend Thomas Kumlehn at Double Negative. Copy and paste it into the text node:

Auml=\xC4, Ouml=\xD6, Uuml=\xDC, \n auml=\xE4, ouml=\xF6, uuml=\xFC \n Szett=\xDF \ntm=\x99, Dot=\x95, (R)=\xAE, (C)=\xA9

To use expressions, preface the text with a : All printed commands are in quotes. For example, if you want to print "Hell" from frames 1 to 10 and "o World" from frames 11 onwards, you could enter:

:time<11?"Hell":"o World"

Finally, you can also use full C formatting for your strings. The use of this is initialized with a : at the start of the text string as well:

: stringf(
  "Red = %4.2f  at Frame %03f", 
  Grad1.red1, time
)

To append strings from another parameter, use something like:

in Text1.text:    Hello
in Text2.text:    : Text1.text + " World"

Parameters	Type	Defaults	Function
width,height	int	GetDefaultWidth(), GetDefaultHeight()	The width and height of the image
bytes	int	1	The bit-depth of the image. 1 = 8 bits, 2 = 16 bits, 4 = 32 bits, or float.
text	string	text	The characters to be printed
font	string		The font to be used.
x,yFontScale	float	100, xFontScale	The x and y scaling of the font
leading	float	1	The amount of spacing between each line
x, y, zPos	float	width/2, height/2, 0	The 3D position of the characters.
xAlign	int	1	The horizontal alignment of the fonts. 1 = left, 2 = center, 3 = right alignment
yAlign	int	1	The vertical alignment of the fonts. 1 = up, 2 = center, 3 = down.
red, green, blue, alpha	float	1, 1, 1, 1	The color of the text
x, y, zAngle	float	0, 0, 0	The 3D rotation angles of the text.
fieldOfView	float	45	The aperture angle in degrees of the virtual camera.
kerning	float	0	The spacing between each letter. You can also have negative values.
fontQuality	float	1	The polygonalization factor of the font splines. We have conservatively set this to a high value. For flat artwork, you can probably get away with a value of 0. When you have extreme perspective, you will want to keep it high.

Synopsis

image Text( 
  image,
  int width,
  int height,
  int bytes, 
  const char * text,
  const char * font,
  float xFontScale,
  float yFontScale,
  float leading,
  float xPos,
  float yPos,
  float zPos,
  int xAlign,
  int yAlign,
  float red,
  float green,
  float blue,
  float alpha,
  float xAngle,
  float yAngle,
  float zAngle,
  float fieldOfView,
  float kerning,
  float fontQuality
);

Script

image Text( 
  image, 
  width,
  height,
  bytes,
  "text",
  "font",
  xFontScale,
  yFontScale,
  leading,
  xPos,
  yPos,
  zPos,
  xAlign,
  yAlign,
  red,
  green,
  blue,
  alpha,
  xAngle,
  yAngle,
  zAngle,
  fieldOfView,
  kerning,
  fontQuality
);

Command Line

-text text font xScale yScale etc...

Example 2

Slate macro - this can be found in the Cookbook.

This macro is to set a FileOut, and inserts a slate at the frame before the first frame, i.e. if your frame range is 1-100, frame 0 gets a printed slate. Load the script up in the interface to see what it does, moving the time slider from frame 1 to 0. There are 3 text generators. One (AText1) provides the headers (ie, "Shot:", "Show:", "Frame Range", etc. The second one (AddText2) gets the information either from the script, or as inputs to the macro that are provided by the user. A last text generator (AddText1) will print the frame number in the corner if markFrame is set to 1. Open up the macro in the interface by putting the cursor over mySlate and hitting enter. Then go ahead an view the parameters for each sub-node. Or, of course, just open the script in a text editor.

See Also
AddText