Load a image file list (.ifl) as a sequence. (Image node)

IFL files are a simple plain-text playlist format originally used in Autodesk pipelines for sequencing rendered images. Each line contains an image filename, either relative or absolute, optionally followed by a frame hold count.

This allows:

• Arbitrary image ordering
• Frame holds without duplicating images
• Referencing images from different directories
• No reliance on numeric filename sequences

Currently in Blender, achieving this type of custom ordering generally requires renaming files, duplicating them, or creating hardlinked copies to force a sequential naming structure.

It would be useful if Blender could interpret an .ifl file directly as an image sequence descriptor. Blender could read the file, resolve each referenced image path, and construct a virtual sequence according to the specified order and hold counts, without requiring file duplication or renaming.

Example: Cui !.ifl . When opened in a text editor, it may look like:

Cui !_00008.png 1
Cui !_00009.png 1
Cui !_00010.png 2
Cui !_00012.png 3
Cui !_00015.png 2
Cui !_00017.png 2
Cui !_00019.png 2
Cui !_00021.png 2
Cui !_00023.png 1
Cui !_00024.png 1
Cui !_00025.png 1
Cui !_00026.png 1

Each line simply consists of;

<image_path> <hold_count>

The hold count specifies how many frames the image should persist before advancing to the next entry.

If Blender supported .ifl as a sequence descriptor, its existing pixel, cutout, and 2D animation workflows could benefit from flexible, non-destructive sequencing without enforcing numeric filename conventions. This would provide a lightweight alternative alongside Blender’s current numbered-sequence mechanism, while remaining fully compatible with existing rendering and caching systems.