hou.frame function

Return the playbar’s current frame. Note that Houdini can be on a fractional frame if fractional frames are enabled.

See also: hou.intFrame, hou.setFrame, hou.time, hou.fps

Note that this function is equivalent to Hscript’s $FF variable. If you want hscript’s $F variable, use hou.intFrame, which rounds the frame to the nearest integer.

To enable fractional frames, turn off the Integer Frame Values in the Global Animation Options dialog.

This function rounds its output to 3 decimal places, just like Hscript’s $FF variable does. Note, though, that because a Python float may not be able to precisely represent a floating point value, and because Python does not round numbers when it displays them, the frame number might end with 9999999999999 or 0000000000001 when you print it to the Python shell. When you convert the number to a string, though, Python will round the value, so it will contain at most 3 decimal places.

>>> 2.759
2.7589999999999999
>>> 2.757
2.7570000000000001
>>> str(2.759)
'2.759'

If Houdini is on a fractional frame and you do not want the rounded value, use hou.timeToFrame(hou.time()).

>>> hou.setFrame(13.193)
>>> hou.frame()
13.193
>>> hou.timeToFrame(hou.time())
13.192999839782715
>>> hou.setFrame(2.759)
>>> hou.frame()
2.7589999999999999
>>> int(hou.frame())
2
>>> hou.intFrame()
3