Frame numbering and padded numbers

Note: As of Maya 2020, FCheck is no longer supported on macOS. You can select a different default image viewer in the Applications preferences (Windows > Settings/Preferences > Preferences).

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 .