What's New in Shake 3.01
Summary
Overview
The Shake 3.01 update includes fixes, enhancements, and improvements to the stability of Shake on all platforms. This release has also been optimized for improved performance on the Apple Power Mac G5 and Mac OS X 10.3.
Additional enhancements have been added to make it easier to manipulate shapes created with the RotoShape node. These enhancements include individual transform control over each shape in a RotoShape node, selection-based RotoShape transforms, the ability to move the center of transformation for any RotoShape, a shortcut menu which allows the visibility of individual RotoShapes to be turned on and off, and the ability to select individual points in a RotoShape that fall within a user definable region around the cursor.
Some known issues with the RotoShape node have been fixed. Occasions of unnecessary processor use have been eliminated. Copying and pasting a group of nodes now preserves the original name of the group. This update also addresses problems encountered when opening large scripts and scripts with numerous FileIn nodes, as well as certain problems with scripts resulting in “recursive evaluation errors.” Another fix specific to the Macintosh version of Shake 3.01 allows disk flipbook renders to process third party plugins and macros correctly.
For more information on the Shake 3.01 update, including a more complete list of fixes, see the Shake Late-Breaking News.
Improvements to the RotoShape node
The following enhancements have been added to the RotoShape node:
- Each shape's transform control now affects only that shape. For example, if a RotoShape node has three shapes in the Viewer, each of the three transform controls will only affect the shape it's associated with.
- Hold down the Shift key while you manipulate one or more selected points with the transform control to modify only the selected points, instead of the entire shape. Using the transform control without the Shift key pressed still modifies the entire shape, regardless of how many points are selected.
- Press the Command or Control key while you drag the center of a transform control to move it in relation to the shape it's associated with. This moves the center point around which shape transformations occur. For example, if you move the transform control of a shape to an area outside the shape itself, rotating the shape results in the shape moving around the new position of the transform control, instead of rotating in place.
- When a RotoShape is selected in the Node View, each shape in that node is labeled in the Viewer with a number based on the order it was created. While the RotoShape node is selected in the Node View, right-click any shape the Viewer to display a shortcut menu with commands to hide that shape, hide other shapes, or show all shapes. Right-clicking anywhere in the Viewer displays a shortcut menu that allows you to show or hide any shape in that node by it's label. Hidden RotoShapes aren't rendered.
- A new option in the RotoShape controls section of the Globals tab labeled “rotoAutoControlScale” increases the size of the transform control of shapes based on the vertical resolution of the image to which the shape is assigned. This makes it easier to manipulate a shape's transform control even when the image is scaled down by a large ratio. A slider labeled “rotoControlScale” allows you to change the default size of the transform control.
- The “rotoPickRadius” option in the RotoShape controls section of the Globals tab provides the ability to select individual points in a RotoShape that fall within a user definable region around the cursor. This allows you to easily select points that are near the cursor which may be hard to select by clicking on directly.