Noob question, should be simple....

[Crode]

you make a plane then put your picture as a texture on it. Then make that plane so you cant select it and presto

[wedge]

a better way is to select the camera you want (i.e. front for a head on shot or side for a profile shot) then click view -> image plane -> import image. one thing about this way that is much better is that unless you change the defaults, the references won't appear in persp renders (in fact they wont appear in any other camera views)

[DesignDawg]

Yes, using image planes is preferred, but there is one little problem that sometimes makes using regular planes better: Image planes in Maya aren't always the best performers. I'm not sure if it depends on video card or not, but they can really slow the viewports down BIG TIME. If you search Highend's forums for "image plane", you'll see hundreds of posts about them slowing to a crawl.

--I still prefer image planes, though. It has rarely ever been a problem for me.

Ricky

[wedge]

hmmm... it just occured to me that you should read the manuals that came with Maya. this will prevent you from having to ask all these menial questions, and instead you can post when you are having a really bothersome problem.

[dmcgrath]

There are many ways to create the image planes for maya, the thing I've noticed that makes them slow in interaction is changing their alpha in the viewports. So I dont recommend doing that.

But I do often like to turn them off and on. That being said, I put them (the cameras, front and side, even top if needed) on a layer in the layer box, name it accordingly, and make it a refrence object. That way you never have to worry about accidentally selecting them in your scene, and you are just a click away from turning them on and off in the persp. view.
Having only a 32Meg vid card, I never had a speed problem with them set up this way.

[Nemises]

Just pop your image planes on a layer...

on/off , selectable/non selectable..easy as pie.

I prefer to be able to see my image planes in perp view.

Ok, quick step by step for Strick9:

-Create poly plane primitive
-scale to the same proportions as your image (or the image will come out in funny proportions of course)
-rightclick, create new material
-select the color map, and choose file, then select the image from your browser.
-add to a layer
-select the "r" option so its renderable but not selectable.

Tada..

It can also help to make it a little bit transparent, but I guess thats a personal preference.

[mogwai]

I haven't done this in a while, but If you use the environment image plane that is connected to the camera and then duplicate that camera. You can use the Duplicate camera to view your work without slowing down the computer.

ie. use side1 (duped camera) to work with instead of the default side camera with the the env. image plane.

hope this helps

[SheepFactory]

Also you can download UltraIP from higend 3d , no more slowdowns when using image planes.

:thumbsup:

[dmcgrath]

I prefer to be able to see my image planes in perp view.
If you cant usually see the image planes in the perspective views, go into the Attribute editor and turn on the "ALL VIEWS".

I think it's a radio button.

I dont know about Ultra IP too much, but are you able to adjust the alpha without the slowdown?

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