I am trying to figure out how to work with a movie image plane by adding animated 3D elements into it.

As of right now I am trying to figure out the Use Background shader. In the image below I have my movie image plane set up and a polygon plane on the ground with the Use Background shader applied. Does this shader not work with a movie image plane? It only displays the still frame where I applied the shader in the timeline and does not display the movie when I go forward/backward in the timeline.

I hope this makes sense since I may be off on the terminology.



With this scene I plan on incorporating an animated character that will jump around the scene then end up smashing a car or pushing in front of the train. This will be quite the feat considering how green I am to this.

Also, when rendering with Mental Ray the movie image plane does not render. It will only render if I use Maya Hardware 2.0 but then shadows do not show up on surfaces with Use Background shader; they only show up when rendering with Mental Ray.