This discussion is locked
sherridge101

Q: speeding up playback

Other than using proxies or bringing in rendered sections of the node tree what are the best ways of speeding up playback?

Oh, and I'm having trouble losing the links to files when I move a project.
I've tried changing the environment variables and Shakes project now picks up the correct location but not the links.

Mac Pro 2.66, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 27, 2010 2:16 PM

Close

Q: speeding up playback

  • All replies
  • Helpful answers

  • by stuckfootage,

    stuckfootage stuckfootage May 27, 2010 2:36 PM in response to sherridge101
    Level 4 (3,040 points)
    May 27, 2010 2:36 PM in response to sherridge101
    sherridge101 wrote:
    Other than using proxies or bringing in rendered sections of the node tree what are the best ways of speeding up playback?


    Shake Manual, page 323:
    Shift-click either the forward or back playback button in the Time Bar area.
    The pointer changes into the cached-playback cursor, and Shake begins to render and
    cache all frames within the current frame range.


    Oh, and I'm having trouble losing the links to files when I move a project.


    Always Use Relative File Paths.
    So when I create a FileIn with an imageName like this:
    //MacintoshDisk/Users/les/Desktop/desktopcrap/big_avfiles/test.mov
    I edit it to be this:
    ./test.mov
    in the same directory where I have saved the Shake script.
  • by sherridge101,

    sherridge101 sherridge101 May 27, 2010 10:50 PM in response to sherridge101
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 27, 2010 10:50 PM in response to sherridge101
    great, thanks
  • by sherridge101,

    sherridge101 sherridge101 May 28, 2010 2:30 AM in response to sherridge101
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2010 2:30 AM in response to sherridge101
    just trying your relative path technique.

    Are saying that when you add a node you make sure the 'Enable/disable the browser from accepting relative file paths' icon is on and that you then change the input nodes path in the 'image Name' to /test.mov.

    And so the nodes are looking at the top level of your home directory?

    What happens if you move this project to a server and then want work on the Shake files from there?

    Cheers,

    Steve
  • by stuckfootage,

    stuckfootage stuckfootage May 28, 2010 11:30 AM in response to sherridge101
    Level 4 (3,040 points)
    May 28, 2010 11:30 AM in response to sherridge101
    Relative paths are +relative to the location of the shake script.+
    In other words, if you're starting from scratch, you need to save
    the script with or near the media before you can use relative paths.
    In my workflow, I usually keep Shake scripts in the same directory
    as the media. By using relative filepaths, I can move the whole
    directory and everything will work.

    The important thing is whether +FileIn's imageName parameter+
    is the full path or the relative path. Typically, I'll just edit the imageName
    so that only ./ and the file name remain.

    There is a shortcut. In the FileIn browser, if you
    enable the browser to accept relative file paths (icon)
    and
    uncheck "show full path" (checkbox)
    then you can type in the file name, starting with ./
    and the resulting FileIn node is created with the relative filepath.
    In this mode, you can also click on the file in the browser,
    and add the ./ in front of the name.
    So that technique can save you some time.

    More details on this subject are available in the Shake manual.
    Check out page 40 and page 112.
  • by sherridge101,

    sherridge101 sherridge101 May 28, 2010 12:27 PM in response to sherridge101
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2010 12:27 PM in response to sherridge101
    gotcha, thanks a lot for the info.