Think outside the box. Shake features an open, extensible architecture — with internal C-like scripting language and macros — that gives you the power to create your own effects and functions. Extend the out-of-the-box feature set by using Shake’s broad SDK, internal C-like scripting language and macros to make custom effects and functions. Customize it to fit your workflow.
Scripting
Because Shake projects are essentially scripts — text files saved out in ASCII format — they are extremely flexible and easy to modify, even without launching Shake itself. If you use a very large script that looks at A, but the 3D artist has just created a new version for that image, image B, you can simply open the script in a text editor and change the reference from image B to image A.
In fact, you can access most Shake functions directly from the Mac OS X Terminal application. Type a simple command in the Terminal to quickly take a series of TIFF images, apply a mask and place it over a background image for 35 frames. Then launch the resulting file into a RAM player or write it out to disk. Shake scripting lets you automate simple, repetitive tasks without opening the application, importing images, creating a tree and rendering.
Expressions
Any parameter in Shake may be a mathematical expression that drives the modification or animation of other nodes. Expressions allow you to modify multiple parts of a composite simultaneously or create sophisticated animations — say, a random flickering on a function that controls brightness — that would otherwise be unrealistic to create by hand.
