Control Image sequence in maya

[galactor]

You can control features like that by keyframing the Frame Extension of your texture file. Or make a little script that handles that. To be able to control the Frame Extension please first right click on the word "Frame Extension".

:: Galactor ::

[kiri]

thanks galactor,
could you tell me how to keyframe the extension of the texture file?
im a bit confused about how to go about it..

[galactor]

In the timeline, set the time to the correct starting point. Then go to your file texture put the frame extension to " 0 " and rightclick on frame extension. Choose to set a keyframe. Go back to the timeline and go to the frane where you want your animation to stop. Go to the frame extension and tell Maya what the last frame should be. And now place the second keyframe.

It is important to know that the best result is achieved by making sure that the amount of frames that you set up in the timeline is equal to the amount of frames the texture will be showing.

:: Galactror ::

[kiri]

thanks, one thing though,
at the moment i am using an expression so that the movie plays one frame per frame of the main timeline (imageplane.frame=frame)

And since i have this expression in there, it is impossible to set a key for the attribute, so is there anyway i can run the texture like this (one frame per timeline frame) but just control when it starts playing?

thanks!

[galactor]

You can disconnect that expression by right click on Frame Extension and choose for break Connection. now you can set your keys.

It is also true that you can make a sript that determines when your texture should start. Notice the ofset of -100 i gave, if i didn't do this the file1.frameExtension would be 100 on frame 100.


if (frame >100 )
file1.frameExtension=frame -100;
else file1.frameExtension = 1;



:: Galactor ::

[kiri]

thanks galactor! :)

[BunnyBunny]

Do the images have to have a specific name?

[TheWraith]

i THINK maya prefers the names to be in the name.ext.# format. even if you're running on windows. at least thats how i remember it being a couple versions ago.

so something like:

imageplane.tga.0001
imageplane.tga.0002
etc...

texture.tga.0001
texture.tga.0002
etc...

maybe it's not like that anymore and you can use the conventional windows way of just name.#.ext so it'd be imageplane.0001.tga etc...

[kiri]

yeah it kinda sucks for naming when running from windows.

i think the safest format is:

name.ext.#

with NO padding (ie no 0001)

eg:
image.tif.1

youlle probably need to use a file renamer like sequence 911

[BunnyBunny]

Where can I find an image re namer like the one you are talking about?

[TheWraith]

i THINK theres one on highend3d.com under the maya plugins/scripts section. not 100% positive on that though.

[BunnyBunny]

I keep getting this
// Warning: Texture file C:/Documents and Settings/bsig/Dokumenter/maya/projects/arioCorp/sourceimages/sequence/Comp 1_0.tga.389 doesn't exist, node file1 //

[kiri]

do you have a file by that name at that location?
usually that error is when the image sequence runs out...
and it depends when you start the sequence.

also, i noticed you have a space in your filename
i dont think maya likes spaces

[BunnyBunny]

I think the thing is Maya wants the name to be image.jpg.# but I cant seem to get that name going. I always get name#.jpg I tried that image renaming app called fren.exe but I coulndt get it from that either.

[kiri]

sequence 911

http://www.highend3d.com/tools/?section=NT#87


under S

[rudymassar]

Open the animation in fcheck.. and save the animation as: whatever.####
and it will come out as whatever.0001.iff (if the iff fileformat is chosen). It works perfect for renaming a sequence.

In Maya you could check the "use frame extension" and keyframe the frame extension... but if the extension numbers are the same as the frame numbers you could type...
=frame (okay it has to evaluate every frame... but you won't notice any time difference)
If you have a loop for instance a 100 frames and your animation is 800 frames you could use the modulus function...
=frame %100
so it starts over again every 100 frames.

Or something like that :).
GL!Rudy Massar
3d-artist.nl (http://3d-artist.nl)

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.