ZHiCK Renamer
Two hundred frames are one row, not two hundred
- Standalone (Windows)
01What it does
- An image sequence is one row, with its frame count and its missing frames
- Renumber a render from 56-156 to 1001-1101 by typing one number
- Rules stack and run in order — find, renumber and repad in one pass
- The preview updates as you type, with the changed characters in green
- Undo is journalled to disk, so it survives closing the app
- Two-pass renaming, so swapping two names is ordinary rather than refused
- Reserved names, illegal characters and long paths are caught before, not during
- Free, no account needed to run it, Thai and English
02A closer look
Every other renamer sees two hundred files.
Point a generic batch renamer at a render and you get a screen of near-identical filenames, no idea whether the sequence is complete, and one wrong rule away from a folder that no longer loads in Nuke. This one is built the other way round. The sequence is the unit. The frame number is structure, and no ordinary rule is allowed to touch it.
The render came out 56-156.
It needs to start at 1001. Type one number. Gaps close — a sequence that skipped 58 and 59 comes out contiguous, or keeps its holes if you tick the box. The awkward part is handled for you: frame 111 wants the name frame 56 is still holding, and renaming through temporary names makes that ordinary rather than a conflict. The same two passes are why swapping two filenames works at all.
Eight rules, applied top to bottom.
Each rule is handed what the last one produced, so “strip the version and renumber the frames” is one pass, not two. Every rule has an on/off switch and a position. Find and replace — plain text, or a pattern with an Examples menu and a cheat sheet behind a ? button Insert — at the start, at the end, or at a character position Remove — a piece of text, or a count of characters Change case — UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, Sentence case Numbering — a counter that follows the visible rows, so unticking one closes the gap Reorder segments — split on a separator, rebuild from a template Renumber frames — the frame numbers themselves Frame padding — how many digits they are written with
A renamer that half-succeeds leaves a folder in two naming schemes at once. While any row is in error, the Rename button is dead.
What it will not do.
No metadata — no EXIF, no ID3, no dates. Other tools do that well and this is not trying to be them. No extensions — rules edit the base name. A sequence whose extension moved is a sequence that stops loading. No background network — on its own it opens nothing and sends nothing. Checking for updates is a button in About, and it runs only when you press it. No surprises — there is no rule that acts on files you cannot see in the list.
Free, and that is the whole plan.
ZHiCK Renamer is given away. It is how people find the rest of what the studio makes — and it is the tool we wanted on our own machines first. Windows, Thai and English, with a dark and a light theme. The complete guide, with every rule shown in the app doing it, is at zhickstudio.com/renamer. Updates are a button, not a background process — press Check for updates in About and it tells you if there is a newer build.
03Specifications
- Category
- Utility
- Processing
- CPU, multi-threaded
- Operating system
- Windows 10 · 11 (64-bit)
- Vendor
- ZHiCK
04Installing it
ZHiCK Hub installs and updates the plugin for you, and is how the trial is issued. If you would rather not run it, the plugin is a folder you copy into the host's plugin path.
05Licence
End User Licence Agreementv1.3 · 10 August 2026
ZHiCK products End User Licence Agreement Version 1.3, 10 August 2026 Vendor: Thanadet Sribandit, trading as ZHiCK (sole trader, Thailand) Contact: zhickstudio@gmail.com Governing law: Thailand This agreement covers any ZHiCK product you buy a licence for — a plugin today, and anything else sold under the ZHiCK name later. Tools given away free, including ZHiCK Hub, are not licensed under this agreement; their use is covered by the terms of sale instead. The terms of sale, and the current version of this agreement, are at https://zhickstudio.com/terms Sections 7 and 8 describe how a plugin behaves inside a host application, and apply only to products that are plugins. Everything else applies to every paid product. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Licence, not sale ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The software is licensed to you, not sold. ZHiCK retains all rights, title and interest in it, including all intellectual property rights. Subject to your compliance with this agreement and payment of the applicable fee, ZHiCK grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use the software on the number of machines stated on the licence you bought. That number is shown on the product page, on your receipt, and in your account. A seat may be moved to another machine at any time, from your account. Re-activating a machine you have already activated does not consume a second seat, and reinstalling or losing the licence file costs you nothing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Which licence you need ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Licences come in two kinds. Which one applies depends on who pays for it, not on what you use it for. An Individual licence is bought by one person, with their own money. You may use it on client work, on commercials, on features, on anything at all — there is no restriction whatsoever on the work you produce with it. What an Individual licence does not cover is a company buying it on your behalf, or reimbursing you for it afterwards. A Studio licence is bought by a company or other organisation, and covers up to the number of machines stated on it. If the cost is met from a business account, this is the licence that applies — whether the software ends up running on five machines or on one. Dividing them this way is what keeps the individual price where it is. If your circumstances change after you buy, because you join a studio or a client takes over the cost, write to the address above and the difference will be settled sensibly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. What you may not do ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may not redistribute, resell, rent, lease, sublicense or publish the software; remove or alter any notice in it; or reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble it, except to the extent that applicable law expressly permits this despite the restriction. A licence covers you, or the organisation named on it — see section 2. It may not be shared with another company or bundled into something else without written permission. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Your output is yours ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZHiCK claims no rights over images, sequences, projects or any other output you produce using the software. You may use that output commercially without restriction or attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Updates and support ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A licence includes updates within the same major version — a 1.x licence receives every 1.x release — at no further cost. Support is by email, at the address above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Trial, and no refunds ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Purchases are final and are not refunded. This is why a free trial of the complete product is offered first: every control, your own footage, nothing held back. Please confirm the product does what you need, in the application and version you actually use, before buying. Where the law of your country gives you a refund right that cannot be waived, that right is unaffected by this clause. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Supported applications (plugins only) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each plugin states which applications it is supported in, on its product page and in ZHiCK Hub. Support means the plugin has been run there and is expected to keep working there. A plugin will not load in an application it does not list — it refuses rather than appearing where it cannot work properly. Applications not listed are not supported, whether or not the plugin happens to run in them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. If a licence cannot be verified (plugins only) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The plugin checks its licence on your machine, offline. It never contacts a server to do so. If no valid licence is found — during a trial, after one expires, or if the licence file is missing — the plugin still loads and still renders the complete effect, with a faint "ZHiCK STUDIO" watermark across the output. It does not disappear from the plugin list and does not fail a render. A licensing problem should cost you an obviously marked frame, never a farm job or a deadline. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. No warranty ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. You are responsible for verifying its output before using it in delivered work. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. Limitation of liability ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To the maximum extent permitted by law, ZHiCK's total liability arising out of or relating to this agreement is limited to the amount you paid for the licence. ZHiCK is not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or missed deadlines. Nothing in this agreement limits liability that cannot be limited by law. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. Termination ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This licence ends automatically if you breach it. On termination you must stop using the software and remove all copies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12. Third-party software ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The software includes third-party components licensed under their own terms. See THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt, distributed with the product.
06Still deciding?
Ask me anything about it — whether it fits your shot, your host version, or your pipeline. I built it for my own work, so the answer is usually specific.
zhickstudio@gmail.com