Frame numbering and padded numbers

Understanding the concept of frame numbering and padded numbers will assist you in knowing the conventions for file opening and saving when dealing with an image sequence or animation.

Whenever a sequence of images is generated, a numbering convention is used to number frames. Padded numbers are frame numbers that have a specified number of digits, where 0s are used to fill the unused digits.

For example,

5 digit padding

myimage00002.ext 

Unpadded

myimage2.ext

FCheck uses different conventions when opening and saving files with padding.

Convention for opening files

When opening files using the command line, a different convention is used to specify a file sequence.

Depending on the position of the frame number in the filename, a different convention is used to indicate the file you are opening.

The @ and # symbols are used to specify the position of frame numbers in filenames. The number of @ is parallel to the amount of padding in the file name.

@

padded one digit

@@

padded to 2 digits (for example, 1 becomes 01, 10 remains 10)

@@@

padded to 3 digits.

#

is a shortcut for @@@@

The following is a list of sequence formats you can open, where @ represents the position of the frame number:

myimage@.ext
myimage.@.ext
@myimage.ext
myimage.@
myimage.ext.@

For example, if you want to open a sequence of files beginning with myimage.001.iff. You would enter the following command line:

fcheck -<option> myimage.@@@.iff

For details on how to open image sequences, see Open image sequences.

Convention for saving files

By default, FCheck saves sequences of images without padding, counting from 1 to the number of frames. For example, FCheck names a 10-frame sequence from myimage1.iff to myimage10.iff.

Using the # symbol, you can indicate the position and the amount of padding in the frame number when saving a sequence of images.

You can save sequences using the following frame/animation formats:

myimage#.ext
myimage.#.ext
#myimage.ext

Use multiple #s, to set the number of padding in the frame number. One # represents one digit in the frame number. For example, myimage##.ext applies two number padding to the sequence.

For details on how to save files, see Save images or sequences .