• Adobe Premiere Pro

  Nth Frame Image Sequence Import

  Posted by Buck Wyckoff on November 14, 2011 at 6:26 am

  I hope I can get the ear of Adobe when it comes to adding some minor, easy features that would make a world of difference to animators. I thought I was in with Leitch at NAB back in the days of dpsVelocity. I was ensured the next release would be my dreamboat. Then along came Harris….

  My render farm is kicking out a continuous 15,802 frame animation. Never did that before. And this is only an animatic(i.e. test). I thought rendering every 2nd or 3rd nth frame would be a real time saver, but when I tested an nth image sequence import, PPro doesn’t go for it. A discontinuity in the sequence and all…..

  If anyone knows a way, that’d be sweet. Don’t suggest an AVI format, etc. Files sequences are what animators do for a variety of good reasons.

  Here’s what PPro needs. A dialog box that allows you to pick a sequence, specify head and tail duration (if desired), allows you to edit the image range it detects (in case you want to import a subset range), batch a series of sequences so you can do it once and be done with it, tell it to import nth ranges (every other or third in a sequence, etc)and while they’re at it, toggle whether, when you are looking at those thousands of files in a folder, you see all the files, or condense the display of files with something like test####.tif, etc, to make it easier to see it all.

  That would be a dream. Thanks.
  Buck Wyckoff
  Buckward Digital

  Jeff Brown replied 14 years, 6 months ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Chris Gunningham

  November 14, 2011 at 9:24 am

  Hi,

  You could use bridge to batch rename the sequence as sequential files then premiere will recognise it as a numbered stills sequential sequence. Alternatively you could import as stills with 1 frame duration and try the posterise time effect and do some maths to work out what every 9th frame of your sequence is and set that as the posterise time frame rate.

  The issue you might have is if you need to export XML to FCP as in my testing exporting an XML of the sequence containing image sequences into FCP only gives me the 1st frame and not the sequential sequence. Anyone have any fixes for this?

  Thanks

  Chris
• 

  Buck Wyckoff

  November 14, 2011 at 5:50 pm

  Thanks for the response. The Bridge thing sounds like a good workaround. I’ll take every opportunity I get to get Adobe to consider the solution I posted.

  I bring in the 1080p sequence into PPro, drop it on the timeline and export to a P2 AVCHD 1080p Class100 clip. I import that and remove the sequence from the bin. The result is indistinguishable from the original uncompressed files.

  Then they play in realtime and I can layer them up with effects 8 layers deep without a problem. I don’t work with the sequence clips on the timeline. It doesn’t playback for beans (and I wouldn’t expect it to….not yet, but raw horsepower will get there before too long) that way.
• 

  Jeff Brown

  November 16, 2011 at 4:01 pm

  Buck – in the meantime…
  Depending on what app you are animating with, there may be an “Nth Serial Numbering” option. There is in 3ds Max (what I use); then when you output 0 – 900 on threes, you files render_0000, render_0001, …render_0300.

  Renaming via Bridge is pretty painless, too.

  -jeff
• 

  Buck Wyckoff

  November 16, 2011 at 5:07 pm

  Thanks.

  I did a MAX test and set Nth to 2, but the frames were numbered 0000, 0002, 0004. I’m guessing there’s something else I need to set. I’m sure I can figure it out. At least I know it can be done.

  Regards,
  bw
• 

  Jeff Brown

  November 17, 2011 at 4:03 pm

  It in the general Preferences window; I think under either the “files” or “animation” tab. A checkbox: “Nth Serial Numbering”
  [can’t be sure, rendering on my Max wkstation at the moment]

  -jeff

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up