How to import every second frame

[D_P_H]

Hi, I have an animation rendered, and to test it I rendered every second frame. The frames are numbered 0,2,4 etc. When I try to import the sequence into AE, the warning about missing frames appears, and it puts the color pattern in-between missing frames.

Can someone help me, how to avoid it and just render every second frame?

Thanks!

[Ishan Y]

Hi there,

Could you tell me how you imported the animation to After Effects? Is it a PNG sequence, or is it imported directly from another Adobe app? 

Thanks,

Ishan

[D_P_H]

Hi, it is a png sequence, but the images are named image0000, image0002, image0004 etc.

I could go by renaming them, but I suppose there is a better solution 🙂

[ShiveringCactus]

I've never heard of this before - but a good idea to reduce render times while testing a project.  Would Posterize Time work here?  So you'd only be displaying every other frame?

https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/after-effects/using/time-effects.html

[D_P_H]

I am new to animation (I am doing archviz, but I have only done still renders and simple animations), and I know this method is used for preview and also for frame interpolation, in Topaz, for example, when you can drastically decrease render times and interpolate missing frames. So now I am working on a larger animation and wanted to test it. Maybe AE isn't the best software for this?

[Ishan Y · Accepted solution]

If you're on Windows, make a backup of the PNG sequence, select all PNG files in the folder, press F2, and type any name, such as "Image". The rest of the PNG files should be sequentially named accordingly. Import the sequence again and let us know how it goes. 

[D_P_H]

Hi @Ishan Y 

Thanks, this works great!

Great tip.

[Ishan Y]

I'm glad that helped!