Need some frame sequence renumbering advice

[John Shulters]

Hi all,

 

I'm working on an animation with a fixed camera and individual objects that rotate independently. I'm rendering each object separately with alpha channels and several render elements to composite everything together in the end. Since each object is only rotating for about 15 frames (and then stays still) my desire is only render those 15 frames and then take the last frame and duplicate it as many times as necessary to finish out the entire sequence (without having to waste time re-rendering a non-moving object for tons of frames that are all identical). I have some file renaming tools I hoped might work, but nothing does the right job. Here's a scenario:

 

the entire animation is 240 frames long

object1 rotates from frame 150 to 165

I end up with frames named object1_0150 to object1_0165 (including add'l render elements)

I need to copy frame 0165 (& elements) to make 0166 thru 0239

I can copy object10165 in windows explorer 73 times and end up with files named "object1_0165.png" thru "object1_0165 - Copy (7) - Copy - Copy - Copy.png"

 

If I were using 3ds max's 'Rename Objects' it would be easy to set a base name plus a numbered sequence, but I can't find a file renamer that does the same thing. 'Quick File Rename' can only concatenate strings to the start or end (no number sequencing)...'Sequence 911' could create the proper sequence, but can't understand the sequence from the selected files with all the "- Copy"s in the name. Anyone out there have some trick for making this work? (Besides loading the frame into something like Premier and stretching it out the required frames and rendering a numbered sequence from that timeline...obviously I'm trying to avoid having additional render time when all I need to do is rename files).

 

Thanks!

John

[matthewgriswold]

Try this out.

http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

 

It looks complicated at first, but it might have what you need...

[John Shulters]

Wow! That is absolutely the perfect solution. It is intimidating, but for what I needed it to do, I was able to find the relevant help in the manual PDF. For anyone else looking to accomplish a similar solution, here's what I did:

 

1. copied the last file of each sequence (e.g. "object1_0165.png") to a separate folder (in which I do the renaming)

2. in Windows Explorer, right-click-drag-and-copy that file as many times as I need (e.g. 84 extra files) ending up with names like "object1_0165 - Copy (8) - Copy - Copy - Copy.png"

3. open Bulk Rename Utility and browse to my folder & select all the files

4. in box 'Remove (5)', I put "-_()1234567890 " in 'Chars.' & "Copy" in 'Words' to get rid of everything in the file name except "object.png"

5. in box 'Numbering (10)', I set 'Mode' to 'Suffix', 'Start' to "0166", 'Incr' to "1", and 'Pad' to "4"

6. click 'Rename' and your done!

 

Thanks again for the suggestion, and more importantly, a solution!

[matthewgriswold]

Absolutely. It's saved my butt multiple times, glad I could help.

[Justin Hunt]

What are you compiling in?

 

In AE or Premiere you can bring in your 15 frames as a sequence, and the single frame. Then you can tell AE how many frames you want to run the single frame.

 

I use a simple app called "rename", you might have to google it as I can remeamber where I got it from

 

jhv

[John Shulters]

What are you compiling in?

 

In AE or Premiere you can bring in your 15 frames as a sequence, and the single frame. Then you can tell AE how many frames you want to run the single frame.

 

I use a simple app called "rename", you might have to google it as I can remeamber where I got it from

 

jhv

 

Hi Justin,

I'm compositing in Autodesk Composite, so I need sequential frames, properly numbered. I know I could fall back on Premiere and import a single frame, stretch out the duration, and render another sequence, but I didn't want to run into any potential re-compression issues, and mostly didn't want to spend the extra time setting up and rendering another sequence. The Bulk Rename Utility can do anything you need it to and it takes me just seconds to get properly sequenced files.

[Justin Hunt]

I understand now,

 

jhv

[John Shulters]

and....just so people know who might be trying to do the same thing I was (that is, only render the frames of an animated object while it's moving and then hold on the last frame through the rest of the animation), you can copy out as many extra identical frames as you need and rename with the process we found above, OR if you're using Composite (and presumably other apps like combustion, After Effects, Premier, etc.) you can just go to the 'Image Import' tab of your clip and set 'Repeat' to "Hold"...does the same thing without having to store excessive amounts of extra identical frames on your hard drive. Sometimes we learn the hard way but at least I found a really cool renaming app in the process!

 

John