I can't get my head round it. There's nothing to stop you changing it to 0, but I just don't get why SideFX (and a couple of other 3D package developers) think 1 is a better frame number to start on.

Timecodes start at zero; the moment I start dropping stuff into an NLE or a comp somewhere else, everything starts at zero again.

I'm not complaining (more of a kinda childish winge) - I just want to understand *why*. Is there some historical reason?

Any thoughts?

Hey Howiem,
I think to start at frame 1 is clearer. for example, if you have a sequence that is 10 seconds long at a frame rate of 25 frames per second. you get a sequence from frame 1-250. starting at zero means the range goes from 0-249. so starting at 1 to me is more logical. it's the first frame. then the second frame and so on.
Cheers
CYTE

Hi,
probably because animation always started on frame 1, look at any old dopesheet and it will start at frame 1. Also frame numbers and timecode are two different things with quite different histories. Nuke also starts on frame 1. Only programmers are weird and start counting at 0 ;-)

Best regards,
Fabian

Hehehe - yep, I've come from a video / programming background so starting at 1 grates horribly. Knowing it comes from traditional animation makes sense though. Instinctively, if I want (say) particles to emit on the first frame, I want to type $SF==0 into the box, not $SF==1. Knowing that there *is* a reason behind it helps me adjust though

I wonder whether H copes with negative frame numbers… might have to test… but starting things at frame 1 means any pre-roll created by, say, jittering particle birth time backwards still keeps things in the positive domain…

OK, I'm now overthinking this and wasting all your bandwidth.

Thanks!

Most studios start at frame 101 or 1001 anyway.

Only programmers are weird and start counting at 0 ;-)

Actually programmers are not weird to “start” counting at 0.

Counting, addressing, indexing, etc. starting at zero reflects efficient use of the hardware that runs the software.

Maybe not so much nowadays with the capacity of chips and memory.

But it was much more important back in the days when say you had to program with technology that had little usable memory.


Remember, starting at 0 represents a state of the hardware - which for the simplest single transister is the off state.

Much more efficient and practical to number/refer to an on/off state with 1 and 0 rather than 2 and 1.

Otherwise at a lower lever, code could become a bit cumbersome to manage. Imagine trying to do a bitwise operations and having to remember you've decided you wanted to ‘number’ the on/offs as 2 and 1 rather than 1 and 0.

howiem
There's nothing to stop you changing it to 0, but I just don't get why SideFX (and a couple of other 3D package developers) think 1 is a better frame number to start on.

Well, you can set the default to start at 0, Lower right, Global Animation Options.

All natural numbers are arbitrary anyways:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms [en.wikipedia.org]

We start at 1001.