Time slider playback start at 1

[smbell]

It would be nice if the playback time slider would start at 1, or an option to start at 1 that will stick on restart.

Frame 0 is not really a thing for 99.9% of real production situations.

[ronald_a]

I second that

[yolov]

Noted, thanks for the feedback.

[yolov]

Hey, I've been going through our docs and it turns out that we actually have a flag for this and it can be used at start-up:

--frame_base=0 (1)​
Set frame base (whether frames start from 0 or from 1)

You can append this flag to the Target field in the right-click properties > Shortcut for the Chaos Player icon. Each new time you start it - the flag will be applied.


You can read more about command flags here: https://docs.chaos.com/display/PLAYER/Command+Reference


Hope that helps, I'm still keeping a note to have an option in the interface in the future.

[smbell]

Hey, I've been going through our docs and it turns out that we actually have a flag for this and it can be used at start-up:

--frame_base=0 (1)​
Set frame base (whether frames start from 0 or from 1)

You can append this flag to the Target field in the right-click properties > Shortcut for the Chaos Player icon. Each new time you start it - the flag will be applied.


You can read more about command flags here: https://docs.chaos.com/display/PLAYER/Command+Reference


Hope that helps, I'm still keeping a note to have an option in the interface in the future.

Oh nice! That's great. Thank you for pointing that out.

[smbell]

It would be nice if that could be set so that it works from a double click of files in explorer though. I'll look into it, maybe something in the registry.

[yolov]

It would be nice if that could be set so that it works from a double click of files in explorer though. I'll look into it, maybe something in the registry.

Good point. I tried researching this a bit, and there are ways to do it by editing the registry, but so far I couldn't find anything reliable, let alone safe enough for me to recommend.

Instead, here's a safe suggestion that works:
1. Create a .bat file and place it anywhere
2. Contents of the bat file:

@echo off

@start C:\"Program Files"\"Chaos Group"\"Chaos Player"\chaosplayer_qt5.exe --frame_base=1 %*​

This is basically a call Chaos Player with the --frame_base flag, followed by %* to accept all subsequent command-line arguments.
The only gotcha is to place quotes around each separate string segment that has spaces in it, instead of wrapping the whole path to Player in quotes.

3. Associate a specific file format to this .bat, instead of chaosplayer_exe
The easiest way is to right-click > Open with > Choose another app > browse for the .bat and make sure to tick "Always use this app to open... files".

This should persist after re-installing Player, since the installation places file type associations, but this is a user association.

The good thing about this approach is that it's clear what the .bat does and it can always be edited.
Of course, the best way to handle this would be to add an option in Player on day.

[Joelaff]

Just definitely don't make it so we can't use frame 0 as the start frame, because frame 1 is not a start thing in 99% of production situations

Real people count from 0 because in our brains we have array offsets .

I can't stand apps that count from 1 (like After Effects default). It messes everything up.

[smbell]

Just definitely don't make it so we can't use frame 0 as the start frame, because frame 1 is not a start thing in 99% of production situations

Real people count from 0 because in our brains we have array offsets .

I can't stand apps that count from 1 (like After Effects default). It messes everything up.

After Effects starts at 0 by default actually, but Nuke starts at 1, so does almost every other CG/Comp application including Flame, Fusion and even Shake back in the day, Houdini, Maya.... so you're more than welcome to start at 0 if you'd like. Just out of curiosity, do you start your renders at frame 0? If someone tells you to do a 120 frame camera move, do you ship 0 - 119? That would get kicked back at any studio I've ever worked at in a heartbeat.

[smbell]

Good point. I tried researching this a bit, and there are ways to do it by editing the registry, but so far I couldn't find anything reliable, let alone safe enough for me to recommend.

Instead, here's a safe suggestion that works:
1. Create a .bat file and place it anywhere
2. Contents of the bat file:

@echo off

@start C:\"Program Files"\"Chaos Group"\"Chaos Player"\chaosplayer_qt5.exe --frame_base=1 %*​

This is basically a call Chaos Player with the --frame_base flag, followed by %* to accept all subsequent command-line arguments.
The only gotcha is to place quotes around each separate string segment that has spaces in it, instead of wrapping the whole path to Player in quotes.

3. Associate a specific file format to this .bat, instead of chaosplayer_exe
The easiest way is to right-click > Open with > Choose another app > browse for the .bat and make sure to tick "Always use this app to open... files".

This should persist after re-installing Player, since the installation places file type associations, but this is a user association.

The good thing about this approach is that it's clear what the .bat does and it can always be edited.
Of course, the best way to handle this would be to add an option in Player on day.

Thank you for the tips! That works well enough for now! I've been working in Linux for the past few months, so I've got a similar solution working there as well.

[Joelaff]

After Effects starts at 0 by default actually, but Nuke starts at 1, so does almost every other CG/Comp application including Flame, Fusion and even Shake back in the day, Houdini, Maya.... so you're more than welcome to start at 0 if you'd like. Just out of curiosity, do you start your renders at frame 0? If someone tells you to do a 120 frame camera move, do you ship 0 - 119? That would get kicked back at any studio I've ever worked at in a heartbeat.

After Effect used to start at 1 by default. I don't know about current versions.

Fusion defaults to frame 0, or at least it does here

If someone won't take frames 0-119 rather than 1-120 then they have too much time on their hands to worry about such trivialities. Just load the footage and use it. Anyone I hire delivers things based on frame 0 as the first frame. Sometimes they are off by one. I slip the footage and move on...