How to change frames in Image Plane /Avi?

[funkyzhu]

Hi,

how can i make it work that my images(1-400) in my image plane change if i play the timeslider in my scene?
I try both, tif-images as image plane with activated 'use frame extension' but nothing change.

I need the changing images, because i work on a project with 3d tracking video scenes.

thx

cu Oska

[dcalogue]

have you tried to key the frame number?

David

[hnf]

i would say that there shouldn't be a prob. normally then you chnage the frame in the timeslider you should see also the fitting frame of your imagesequence.

have you tried to use an sgi or iff image seq ?? these are the best imagefile formats for maya.

[funkyzhu]

Hi,

i try tif-imagefiles and avi-movie sequence.
Both dont work at the 2nd frame. At the first i see the first frame from the avi or the images, but not the other one.
At this time i try maya live function and there i have an result, and see all images from the avi, but in an bad quality if i make an playback.
I test in this moment to go back to tif- images.
I hope there are better results as with avi-files.

But with a normal camera and an imageplane i havent become more than one frame on the image plane.

I havent key at this time anything.
If you have any other ideas, i would be pleased.

thx
cu Oska

[joel]

with an imagesequence,
check use frame extension and type =frame in the textbox.
This just make the extension be the same as the current frame.
You can control which image in the sequence is to be shown with expressions like:
if (frame==X)
fileX.frameExtension=whatever;
else
fileX.frameExtension=somethingelse;

I just did this in a simulation where a couple of balls were supposed to change their facial expressions to match what was happening. The filetextures didnt always update in the viewport, but in rendering they did. I think it was probably a videocard issue.

[georgeaye]

I have just completed a job where there had to be a tv screen displaying an animated tv picture.

I read through the rendering and rendering reference manuals and found only info on animated textures as backgrounds. Using this info I read that one could use a .mov file (.avi was not listed) or a sequence of frames. Well I couldn't get the movie file to work at all (using a movie node simply connected to the colour of a shader), so I was forced to use an image sequence.

I found that Maya uses a "use frame extension" switch to enable image sequences, but there appears to be a strange anomoly here.

If one has a sequence of frames AnimTexture.001.tif, AnimTexture.002.tif, AnimTexture.003.tif, AnimTexture.004.tif, AnimTexture.005.tif, then you'd think that Maya would pick them up in a sequence... Unfortunately not. In my experience I had to rename the frames so that the filenames changed from name.#.ext to name.# only. There is no need for the extension. Maya seems to only care if the numbered sequence appears at the end of the filenames.

So to be clear:
Not AnimTexture.001.tif, AnimTexture.002.tif etc
But AnimTexture.001, AnimTexture.002, etc
OK?

And as it says in the manual you set the number in the box to the first frame number and "set key" it, then change the number to the last frame number and "set key" again, moving the timeslider accordingly.

This worked for me just recently, and it was a pain changing the filenames. Either do it by hand or use Maya Composer on IRIX to rename the filenames for you. If possible, use maya to create the frames in the first place as Maya can write out frames, name.# where as AfterEffects can't. It always produces files name.#.ext

I hope this helps someone

George Aye

[pbuckley]

That's really strange cos I've always used filename.#.tif and never had any problems at all with image sequences.

[growler]

Official word from A|W is that the format should be name.#.ext and you have to set keyframes for the first and last frame extension.

I have been assured that clarification will appear in the next set of manuals. (Thanks Jill J.)

"Fix it in Post!!...... What do you mean, 'We ARE post'???"

[stab]

In a scene I had, I needed the imagePlane's frame extension to match the current frame of the animation, so I keyed the frame extension with the following expression:

caveImagePlane.frameExtension = currentTime -q;