Flythrough Tab Reference

The Flythrough tab on the Controls section of the Spiegel main window provides complete control of a movie. This tab consists of four sub-tabs, for controlling different parts of the movie:

Movie

Contains Load/Save/New movie functionality, as well as control of global movie options such as length and framerate.

Streams

Creates, deletes, and manipulates streams as a whole.

Path Editor

Visually manipulates keyframes.

Keyframes

Creates, deletes, and manipulates individual keyframes in streams.

Movie tab

The Movie tab contains three buttons for handling the movie as a whole.

New movie

Creates a new movie containing no streams.

Load movie

Opens a file-selection window for loading movie files.

Save movie

Opens a file-selection window for saving movie files.

Movie files by default have a file extension of .movie.

Streams tab

The Streams tab allows for creation, deletion, and modification of streams. On top is the Streams drop-down list. This displays all of the streams in the movie. Selecting a stream causes its information to be displayed in the controls below. To the right of the list of streams is a menu labelled "New Stream." This has three entries, Double, Vector, and String, creating new streams with the specified data types.

Four fields are associated with each stream: ID, Name, Value type, and Interpolator. ID is a short unique identifier used internally. Name is a descriptive name used for display. Value type indicateswhat kind of data the stream produces, corresponding to the choices in the New Stream menu. Interpolator determines how the keyframe values are interpolated, as follows:

Constant

The value remains constant between keyframes.

Linear

The value is linearly interpolated between keyframes.

TCB

A TCB spline is used to produce a smooth curve through the keyframes.

Command

A special "interpolator" used for streams containing commands.

Path Editor tab

This tab is described in CreatingASimpleMovie and MoviePathEditor.

Keyframes tab

The Keyframes tab provides access to modify individual keyframes. The drop-down list in the upper left contains all of the streams in the movie, listed by name, and the drop-down list in the upper right contains all of the keyframes in the selected stream. The keyframes are shown with the keyframe number, followed by the time in brackets, followed by the value of the keyframe. The left and right arrow buttons in the upper right, when pressed, change the selection to the previous and next keyframes, respectively. The plus and minus buttons add and remove keyframes, respectively. The new keyframe is a duplicate of the currently selected keyframe, and is placed after the current keyframe. The new keyframe is then selected.

When a keyframe is selected, tabs corresponding to various aspects of the keyframe appear below the list boxes. The Time tab allows for editing of the timestamp of the keyframe. The Value tab provides access to the actual value of the keyframe, and takes on several forms depending on what type of value the stream contains. Other tabs may appear depending on what interpolator the stream uses. For example, the TCB tab provides controls for editing the per-keyframe interpolation parameters when the TCB spline interpolator is in use.

The Time tab and the Value tabs for vectors and floating-point values all use the same set of value-entry controls. From left to right, the tabs contain a label, a number entry field, seven increment/decrement buttons, and a slider. The value can be set manually by entering a value in the text field and pressing Enter. From left to right, the seven buttons decrement the value by 1, 0.1, and 0.01, set the value to zero, and increment the value by 0.01, 0.1, and 1, respectively. Dragging the slider adjusts the value graphically. The slider and text box are linked, and always represent the same value. If the value set by the text field and/or the increment/decrement buttons is out of the slider's range, the slider is disabled, since it cannot represent the true value.

The Time tab contains one such set of controls, for adjusting the timestamp of the keyframe.

For floating-point streams, the Value tab contains one set of adjustment controls, for setting the value of the keyframe.

In vector streams, the Value tab contains three sets of controls, for adjusting the x, y, and z values of the vector independently.

TCB tab

If the stream is set to use the TCB interpolator, a TCB tab will appear, allowing adjustment of the tension, continuity, and bias parameters for this keyframe. This tab contains three pairs of sliders, one pair for each parameter. The parameters can be adjusted independently for the in and out sides of the keyframe, i.e. the spline segments between keyframes k-1 and k and between keyframes k and k+1, respectively.

For each of the three parameters, there are six items on the tab:

• A checkbox labelled with the name of the parameter. If this box is checked, the parameter can be controlled, while if it is unchecked the parameter will be inherited from the default for the interpolator.
• A Lock checkbox, which, when checked, indicates that the in and out sides of the keyframe are being controlled jointly. This is the most common mode of controlling the parameters, and is the default.
• In and Out checkboxes, each of which indicates whether that side of the keyframe is being controlled independently.
• A linked text field and slider for each side of the keyframe, corresponding to the In and Out checkboxes.

The state of the checkboxes indicates what is being controlled. If the main named checkbox for the parameter is unchecked, then the other three checkboxes are unchecked and the parameters fall back to the interpolator defaults, which are shown in the text field and disabled slider. From this state, checking either the main checkbox or the Lock checkbox causes both to be checked, and the upper slider is enabled. Dragging this slider adjusts the value for both the in and out sides of the parameter.

If Lock is unchecked, then In and Out become checked and both sliders are enabled, allowing for separate control of the in and out sides. If, from the locked state, In is checked, then the in side becomes controllable and the out side reverts to the default, while checking Out reverts the in side to the default. In and Out can be checked and unchecked at will, and will enable and disable control of their respective sides of the parameter. Re-checking Lock will link the two sides again, while unchecking the main checkbox will disable control entirely.

-- TimPeterson - 13 Jun 2006