Please add setting to choose 0- or 1-based timeline
Some people animate with a 0-based timeline (frame 0 is first frame), some 1-based. I am in the latter camp and am also used to work that way from other software like Moho where 1-based is the only way and frame 0 is not for animation, but basically a 'setup'-mode.
This works fine for the most part, but not for Blenders timeline min-limit. Blender doesn't allow us to move the playhead before frame 0, which is nice, but for 1-based workflows it shouldn't even allow us to go to frame 0.
This is no issue when using the Home-key to go to the start (which goes to the first frame of the range), but it is a problem when quickly moving the playhead fully to the left until it cannot go further; then it's at frame 0, not at frame 1, eventhough the range minimum is set to 1.
Which is prone to user errors, which I sometimes bump into only to see it later and could've been avoided easily I think;
It would be super helpful if there would be a preference setting to let us choose between a 0-based or a 1-based timeline. When choosing 0-based it would work as is now, but when choosing 1-based the timeline(s) would not allow us to select frame 0 no more (limits at fr 1).
Thanks for considering!
3 Comments
I might be odd here, but I usually start animating at frame 1000, sometimes more.
Since if one later on in a project either gets the idea to animate some more at the start, or if one is forced to bake some simulation or the like ahead of the start of the animation. Then it is good to have room for it all. Since one can't go to negative frame numbers, for anything.
Now one can go into the dope sheet and move everything forward by n frames. But I have fund that to be very error prone, since it is trivial to forget details.
Be it unselected armature layers, objects hidden from view to declutter the workspace, or keyframed constants in the shader editor for various things like dynamic painting and resulting image sequences. To name a few potential issues. Other animators can probably append more cases. There is also solutions to many of these issues. One can make a lengthy checklist and ensure everything is right before moving, but this is way more work than just starting at a higher frame number and give oneself that margin.
In the end, starting at frame 0 or 1 is a non issue for me, I am no where close to it.
But I can agree that selecting an unrenderable frame is a bit silly.
To me, it sounds more like you are asking for an option to not be able to place the playhead outside the frame range. And the good part is that it already exists!
In the timeline editor > Playback popover > Enable
Limit to Frame Range:If that is indeed what you needed, please edit your post to change the status ad "Done".
Thanks for your response and for thinking along.
Unfortuntatly that's not the same, because that also limits the end of the range. Also the frame range is also used for playback or to have a range for baking or something else which uses the range to calculate things which is not always the full animation. And I definitely don't want to limit the playhead to this range and still want to be able to edit keyframes outside. Only not before the first frame (which in my case is 1).
What I'm after is what blender is already doing now, but than also respecting 1-based animators by supplying a switch as proposed.