adding BG video in Maya
 

Hello,

I'm aware that this subject has been addressed, but I'm unable to grasp the concept. I have Maya's personal edition and I would like to add a video (avi - that I can convert to separat tifs, ect.) to the scene that I can overlay 3D objects/models on top. I would like to have the video playing in the BG while the maya obj is animated on top. I've tried adding a separated tif as a image plane and it just appears to be still. Here are my steps:

1. open a new scene
2. select image plane from the "view menu"
3. open the image in the image properties (selecting the first myimg_0000.tif) and enabling "use image sequence"
4. set keyframes for the start and end time (3 min) on the timeline
5. click "play" on the timeline

When I do this the timeline seems to only play the first frame.

Is there something I'm missing or is there another way to do this?

From reading some of the threads here this appears to be possible. Or maybe it can't be done with the trial version?

Help Please :headbang:

Thanks,
Troy

Hey there Troy.

Can't really say, as I don't use PLE. Just wondering, have you tried to just use the AVI as a texture? Have only used unlimited, but with it you can just use a video file instead of an image for the colour channel of a texture-map.

E.g -
- Open up the hypershade window
- Left click on Lambert
- Now open up the attribute editor
- rename it to BGVideoTexture
- click the checkered box next to the color slider
- Select the "Movie" 2D texture
- You'll notice the attrib editor's window just changed. Thats ok.
- Click the folder icon next to "Image Name" and load in your AVI file.
- Next, and hopefully last - just check the "Use Image Sequence" box to on. The text input box should turn purple to indicate that it's controlled by an expression.
In my case, it reads: "movie1.frameExtension=frame".
By adding a multiplier (or divider) to the end I can speed up or slow down the playback of the texture.

I've not worked with sequences of images, other than outputting them and then compositing. Perhaps Maya is expecting the file names to have a different format. (Think of all the formats available in the Render options)

Anyway, I heartily recommend Mike McKinnley's tutorial that covers using an avi as a texture-map. Just note that he's using an older version of Maya in the vid, and some options may be slightly different. (My description is a little different to his, but works fine with Complete 7.0)

You'll find it at http://www.mtmckinley.net/tutorials.html.
It's right down the bottom somewhere. I think it's about 2nd from the bottom.

Hi,

Thanks for the response. I'm surprise that this didn't receive more interest. Seems like the would be pretty easy to do. I
have a trial version of 3Ds Max and it works fine. Of course this should be a breeze in maya? Again, all I want to do is add a video as my background and overlay 3d objects created in maya on top. I will give your suggestion and see what happens. Btw, i'm trying to decide between maya and 3ds which one to purchase and being able to model on existing video will weigh heavily in my final decision.

Troy