A rough-and-ready file renaming utility that gives all files in the same folder sequential names.
BlockRename.exe -f folder -b base
takes all the files in folder, sorts them alphabetically, and renames them base_0000.ext, base_0001.ext and so on (wtih .ext being the original extension). The program will print a list of each rename it does.
If the renaming would cause data loss, for example if one or more of the target names already exists in the folder and would be overwritten by the renaming operation, the program will print an error message and exit. If you get this error message, try renaming all the files with a different base name first, then running it again with your intended base name.
I've been using the video editing and post-production suite DaVinci Resolve for producing little videos including snippets of stop-motion animation.
One handy feature of Resolve is that it will automatically compile sequences of still images into film clips as long as the still files are all named with the right convention: they must all start with the
same prefix, and end with a sequential number without any gaps in the sequence.
If you're using a digital camera that follows the DCF standard this is mostly fine, because it matches the file-naming part of the DCF standard; if you've taken any files out of the sequence it splits your film
into two clips, but that's liveable. However if you're using something that doesn't follow the DCF standard—like my phone, which gives each image file a name derived from its timestamp such as
20220816_070112.jpg—then it sees them all as completely separate images.
Because renaming a whole bunch of image files is a pain when you have 24 images per second of film, I wrote this tool. Put all the files that are to make up one film clip into their own folder. Do any tweaks to the
file naming needed to put them into the right order, if you have to. Run BlockRename.exe and the files all have names which will make sure Resolve, importing in Sequence mode, sees them all as a single clip.
This tool is written in C# for .NET 6, and although it's only been tested on Windows 11, should be fully cross-platform.
I haven't found any issues as yet, but I haven't tested the program very thoroughly. Make a backup copy of your files before running it.
Any errors caused by IO or file permissions issues will generally cause the program to exit mid-progress, with some files already renamed.
The program sorts existing filenames according to the .NET "invariant culture", so bear this in mind if your source files have a variety of names.