The Composition Panel¶
The Composition Panel contains the Timeline, Track Editor, Playback Controls, and the Service Selector. In the Default Layout, this panel appears at the bottom of the HoloEdit UI, below the Viewport and next to the Project Panel.
The Composition Panel allows the user to interactively view and edit the composition in the Timeline, and create stages and intervals for processing.
The Composition Panel is made up of the following pieces:
The Track View Let you add and arrange stages and tracks.
The Timeline Toolbar has the tools for adjusting intervals on the Timeline.
The Timeline and Playback Controls Lets you control the playback of your Timeline as well as enabling Timeline features such as snapping and looping.
The Timeline contains stage, and interval data.
The Process Pending and Process Selected Buttons These buttons will execute intervals that are dirtied or unprocessed, or selected, respectively.
The Service Selector This drop-down list will display available HPS servers to choose from. See Choosing a Job Server for more information. This also includes the Job Viewer short-cut.
The Track View¶
Navigation¶
The Track View, located in the bottom left of the HoloEdit UI, displays a list of the tracks included in the current composition and their stages. When one or more tracks are present, the arrow to the left of the track name can be clicked to expand or collapse the track’s stage list. Clicking on a track or stage in the Track View will let you see and edit its details and settings in the inspector.
See the Inspector documentation section for more information on editing tracks in the Inspector.
Hovering over a track or stage brings up controls for that track or stage. Theses controls have the following options:
Track/Stage Menu: This lets you see all of the options for modifying the track or stage. For more information on the options take a look at the Track/Stage Controls section.
Delete Track/Stage: Deletes the selected track or stage.
Add New Stage: Creates a stage below the selected stage.
Toggle Track Visibility: Allows you to hide the content of this track in the viewport.
Lock/Unlock Track/Stage: Lets you lock or unlock this stage or track. When a stage or track is Locked, its intervals will be crossed out in the Track Editor, and cannot be accidentally edited.
The Timeline Toolbars¶
The Timeline Toolbar, located below the composition and the Timeline, contains tools for editing intervals in the Timeline. The Timeline contains two tools.
The Arrow Tool¶
The arrow tool is selected automatically after opening HoloEdit. This is the main tool for selecting and editing intervals in HoloEdit, and lets you perform all normal editing tasks such as creating and modifying intervals.
The hotkey for this tool is V
The Razor Tool¶
The Razor Tool is a special tool for editing intervals in the Timeline. There are several ways of using the Razer tool.
Left Click: Cuts existing intervals into two new intervals.
Shift + Left Click: Cuts across an entire track splitting that interval for all of the stages.
Left Click and Drag: Cuts an existing interval at the start and end points of the drag.
Ctrl + Left Click and Drag: Shrinks an interval to the dragged range.
Intervals created through the Razor Tool will inherit the settings of the original interval that was cut.
The hotkey for this tool is C
Stages¶
Processing and editing work in HoloEdit is done through Stages.
Stages are individual processes that add or manipulate the data streams contained in a track. Each stage represents a kind of process, and can contain one or more intervals specifying frame ranges and custom settings for processing. Each stage corresponds to a row on the Timeline where intervals can be created for that stage.
Stages can be clicked on and selected to display their details and settings in the Inspector window.
The specific settings available and their effects depend on the stage. See Stage Types for more details.
For more information on editing settings in the Inspector, see Inspector - Settings.
You can use the Interval Settings to configure the options provided by the stage independently per interval.
When one or more tracks are visible, a small dot appears to the left of stages with samples currently being displayed in the viewport.
Track / Stage Controls¶
The track / stage controls for each track or stage can be accessed by clicking on the three dots to the right of the track or stage name, or by right clicking on the stage name.
Add New Track: Creates a new empty track below the selected track.
Duplicate Track: Creates a copy of this track below the selected track.
Rename Track: Renames the selected track.
Delete Track: Deletes the selected track.
Add Stage: Creates a new stage at the top of the track.
Stage Menu: This lets you see all of the options for modifying the Stage.
Propagate Intervals to Next Stage: Create new intervals on the subsequent stage matching each interval present in the stage. Does nothing if no stage exists below the specified Stage. Existing intervals will be overwritten if they overlap with the new intervals, or split if the intervals being propagated are smaller than the existing intervals.
Rename: Makes the name field editable so the user can provide a custom name. To apply a name change, press enter or click away from the text field. You can also rename stages by selecting the stage and pressing the “F2” hotkey.
Copy Settings: Copies all edited settings on the current stage.
Paste Settings: Pastes the last copied stage settings to this stage.
Clear Stage Intervals: Removes every interval from the stage. As with interval removal elsewhere in HoloEdit, any data streams in the stage will be preserved.
Clear Stage Data: Removes all data streams from the stage. Intervals are left intact.
Delete: Delete the stage and its contents.
Creating And Arranging Stages¶
To create a stage for press the add new stage button on any track or stage, then choose a stage type from the drop down menu. The new stage will be created below the that track or stage. The new stage will automatically inherit the intervals from the stage that created it.
Stages can be re-arranged by clicking and dragging on the stage name, and releasing the stage at any point within its parent track. Rearranging stages that have been processed can cause intervals to be labeled as dirty (see Editing Compositions - Intervals for more information).
Stage Selections¶
Multiple Stages can be selected at once by shift or ctrl clicking on multiple stages. Each selected stage will be highlighted in the Track View UI.
When multiple stages are selected, the most recently selected two stages will be available for Comparison View, and the most recently selected texture or animation stream and all selected mesh streams will be displayed in the Inspector.
Visibility¶
The “Eye” icon of a track or stage can be clicked to show or hide that track/stage. During export, only visible tracks will contribute to the export.
Lock¶
The Padlock Icons can be clicked to toggle locking a stage or track. When an item in the composition is locked, its intervals will be crossed out in the Timeline, and cannot be accidentally resized, moved, or deleted. Additionally, most of the Stage Controls are unavailable via right-click or via the three dots icon to the right of the stage name. Locked stages and intervals will be placed in read-only mode.
Locking may be applied at either the track or stage level. When a track is locked, all of the stages contained within are also locked, signified by greyed-out closed padlock icons. Unlocking the track will also unlock the corresponding stages if they inherited their lock status from the track. Stages that were locked individually will be signified with the lit up closed padlock icon and will remain locked regardless of the track state.
Current Time display¶
The Current Time Display shows a numerical representation of the current time represented by the Playhead. Clicking on the “s / f “ text to the right of the time toggles the display between frame and timecode formats. Left-clicking on the current time allows you type in a specific value to update the playhead.
The Timeline¶
The Timeline is made up of three parts
The Time Ruler, the topmost strip displaying the timing of your composition for navigation
The Interval Editor, the large area directly below the Time Ruler
The Interval Editor is the primary workspace for assembling and editing tracks. Each entry in the Interval Editor is aligned to a stage in the Track View, to the left. The Interval Editor is where you create, arrange, and inspect intervals.
The Timeline Controls, a bar stretching along the bottom of the Timeline
The Playhead¶
The Playhead is the pink line and arrow block positioned on the Timeline. This represents the current location in the Timeline. This can be dragged to scrub the data on the Timeline.
Navigation¶
You can zoom in and out on the Time Ruler and Interval Editor with the mouse wheel, or by clicking and dragging on the pink “Timeline Zoom” bar at the very top of the Timeline. You can pan the Timeline by clicking and dragging the middle mouse button anywhere in the Timeline view. Additionally, you can frame the composition by selecting the Frame Timeline option in the View Menu, or pressing the “G” hotkey. This will zoom and pan the Timeline to frame the entire composition if no selection is present, or a portion based on the stage and interval selection.
Track Time Selections¶
Within the portion of the track corresponding to a stage, You can left-click and drag on empty track space in the Interval Editor to create a “Track Time Selection”, indicated by a block of time highlighted in dark blue. To select multiple intervals, You can click and drag over existing intervals, or shift left click on intervals.
Right-clicking in the Interval Editor will bring up a context sensitive menu.
Right-clicking into the Timeline, the options are:
Execute all Intervals In Stage: All intervals in the stage will be executed for processing. See Processing & Jobs for more details
Execute All Intervals Missing Outputs: Every interval containing incomplete work (frames not executed, frames with errors, etc.) will be executed as a single job. See Processing & Jobs for more details
Propagate interval Create new intervals on the subsequent stage matching each interval present in the stage. Greyed out if no stage exists below the specified stage. Existing intervals will be overwritten if they overlap with the new intervals
Right-clicking on a “Track Time Selection”, the options are:
Add Interval(s): Create interval(s) in selected time & stage(s)
Clear data: This removes data present in the selection, but not currently contained in an interval (as a product of processing an interval and then resizing or deleting it)
Right-clicking on an Interval the options are:
Execute: Executes incomplete data in the selected intervals for processing. HoloEdit will create a job that processes the necessary work to correct failed, dirty, or unprocessed frames and segments. See Processing & Jobs for more details
Execute Missing: Execute any selected interval containing incomplete (failed or not yet processed) frames. See Processing & Jobs for more details
Execute Dirtied: Execute dirtied frames in any selected intervals. See Interval Dirtiness for more details on interval dirtiness
Execute Failed: Execute failed data in any selected intervals. HoloEdit will create a job that processes the necessary work to correct failed frames or segments.
Export: Export only the contents of the selected interval(s). See Export for more details
Delete: Remove the selected Intervals from the track
Clear Data: Remove generated data and configuration for the selected intervals
The Execute Missing, Execute Dirtied, and Execute Failed options are context sensitive, and may not appear in the right-click menu if appropriate samples are not present in your selected interval(s).
Snapping¶
When adjusting an interval, by default the ends will automatically snap to the ends of other intervals on the Timeline, even on other stages. The items being snapped to are highlighted in white. This can be disabled via the “Snap Interval” button in the Timeline Controls. See Timeline and Playback Controls for more information.
Loop Selection¶
Playback is constrained by the Loop Selection, the grey bar with pink handles located directly below the Time Ruler and above the Interval Editor. This can be resized by clicking and dragging the pink handles on either side, and moved by clicking and dragging on the body of the selection. Playback will stop and start within these boundaries.
Timeline and Playback Controls¶
The Playback Controls bar contains controls for playback and some Timeline settings.
From left-to-right, the controls are:
Playback Controls¶
Start: Set the Playhead to the first frame in the composition
Previous Interval: Set the Playhead to the closest preceding interval start
Previous Frame: Step back one frame
Play Backwards: Play the current composition in reverse
Play Forwards: Play the current composition
Next Frame: Step forward one frame
Next Interval: Set the Playhead to the next closest interval start
End: Set the Playhead to the last frame in the composition
Snap Settings¶
Snap To Frame: Toggles intervals snapping to the edge of a frame when scaling or moving. Always enabled.
Snap Interval: Toggles interval snapping to the edge of another interval when scaling or moving.
Snap To Playhead: Toggles interval snapping to the Playhead when scaling or moving.
Loop Controls¶
Loop: Toggles looping when playing within the current Loop Range
Reset Loop Markers: Resets the loop selection to run from the first frame in the composition to the end of the composition
Additionally, you can scrub through the current clip by clicking and dragging the Playhead on the Time Ruler.
Playback is constrained by the Loop Selection, the grey bar with pink handles located directly below the Time Ruler and above the Interval Editor. This can be resized by clicking and dragging the pink handles on either side, and moved by clicking and dragging on the body of the selection. Playback will stop and start within these boundaries.
Process Pending/Selected Buttons¶
The Process Pending (yellow), and the Process Selected (white) buttons allow you to execute intervals more efficiently by grouping similar intervals together for job submission, or by submitting only those intervals you have selected.
Process Pending¶
This button will send off all unprocessed, or dirtied intervals to the currently selected HPS.
Process Selected¶
This button will send all selected intervals off to the currently selected HPS for processing.
Service Selector¶
The Service Selector can be found at the bottom right-hand corner of the Composition Panel. It allows you to quickly view, and choose which HPS server you would like to send jobs to. This menu acts much like the Jobs > Active Job Server menu found at the top of HoloEdit.
When selecting ‘My Machine’ from the Service Selector for the first time, it will run the first-time set-up for local job server. Future selections of ‘My Machine’ will not run this first-time set-up.
HoloEdit stores which jobs are processing on what servers in the composition. This means you do not need to remember and change the HPS service manually, and what you were using will be applied when you load the composition.
Job View Button¶
To the right of the Service Selector is a short-cut to the Job Viewer. This open the Job Viewer and lets you check on your job’s progress processing in the cloud.