SAVEKEY(nged)

💾 SAVEKEY(nged) — BRL-CAD User Commands — append current view as a keyframe to an animation script file ✨

🌸 NAME

Okay so savekey is literally the command that appends your current view as a keyframe to an animation script file. Main character energy, no cap 💅.

🌈 SYNOPSIS

savekey file [time]

That’s the whole vibe check, bestie.

🦋 DESCRIPTION

Here’s the tea: the savekey command saves the current view state as a keyframe entry to file, which is opened in append mode. If the file does not exist it is created; if it exists, the new keyframe is appended to the end. Periodt.

The optional time argument is a floating-point number that is written as a timestamp on the first line of the keyframe entry. If omitted, no timestamp line is written and the view data follows immediately. Multiple keyframes can be accumulated in the same file by calling savekey repeatedly with increasing time values. Obsessed with that little routine, fr fr 💖.

🎀 Output format

Each keyframe entry consists of the following lines written in the RT animation script format:

1. (Optional) time — the floating-point time value, if provided.
2. size — the view size (a single floating-point value).
3. ex ey ez — the model-space eye position (three floating-point values), computed from the current view-to-model transform at the conventional eye position (view-space [0, 0, 1]).
4. A 4×4 rotation matrix — the current view rotation, written as four rows of four space-separated floating-point values.
5. A blank line terminating the entry.

This format is compatible with RT’s -M option for animated rendering — slay 🔥.

To save the complete view state (including eye point, orientation, and size in a single operation), use saveview. To restore a view saved with savekey, use loadview. Teamwork, iykyk 🫶.

🍓 EXAMPLES

Example 1. Save the current view as a keyframe at time 0

mged> savekey anim.key 0

Appends the current view as a keyframe at time 0.0 to anim.key. The file is created if it does not exist.

Example 2. Accumulate multiple keyframes for animation

mged> ae 0 0 mged> savekey anim.key 0 mged> ae 90 0 mged> savekey anim.key 1 mged> ae 180 0 mged> savekey anim.key 2

Sets three view orientations and saves them as keyframes at times 0, 1, and 2 in anim.key, building an animation that rotates the view 180° over 2 seconds.

Example 3. Save without a timestamp

mged> savekey view.key

Appends the current view to view.key with no timestamp. Useful when time-stamping will be handled externally.

👑 AUTHOR

BRL-CAD Team. Iconic, honestly.

💌 BUG REPORTS

Reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org. Do that if something’s giving broken, bestie 🫶.

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Okay that’s the whole page 🌈 — source/version: BRL-CAD, page: SAVEKEY(nged), and that’s literally the entire footer; no date listed 💀🎀.