Automate Roto shape life time settings.

There are various ways to set the lifetime of roto shapes. Some artists prefer using the lifetime tab in the roto node, while others move the roto shape outside the working resolution. Some people use the ‘multiply’ node to achieve this, and some artists animate the ‘visible’ knob in the roto node. The method of doing this varies from artist to artist.

lifetimeRoto.py sets selected rotoshapes lifetime based on keyframes. It gets the selected shapes keyframe value and applies min and max to lifetime start and end.

Final .py code.

'''

Created on 07-april-2016

@author: satheesh-R

mail - satheesrev@gmail.com

'''

### to set selected roto shapes lifetime based on the min max keyframes value.

import nuke

def setRotoLifeTime():

 ### get selected node

    selNode = None

    try:

        selNode = nuke.selectedNode()

    except ValueError: # no node selected

        pass

    if selNode == None:

        nuke.message('make sure your roto node selected')

        return

    ### find selected roto shapes keyframes

    if selNode.Class() == 'Roto':

        for selShape in selNode['curves'].getSelected():

            keyFrame = selShape[0].center.getControlPointKeyTimes()

            keyFrames = [int(i) for i in keyFrame]

            low = (min(keyFrames))

            high = (max(keyFrames))

            ### applying min max keyframe to per shape lifetime

            selNode['lifetime_type'].setValue(4)

            selNode['lifetime_start'].setValue(low)

            selNode['lifetime_end'].setValue(high)