More image plane trouble...

[MontyPython2004]

I feel bad going on about this stuff, but now I have a new problem about image planes that I haven't seen anyone else bring up (yes I did search the forum already and google). When I load up the image planes of course the front view image plane is bigger, but when I try to resize it using the Height and Width properties of the imagePlane1 attributes its using constrained proportions so when I change the value of width the size changes in both width and height, same goes if I just enter a value for height but not width. I also sometimes get a problem to where those value boxes don't even do anything. Say I first set up the image planes, and I go into the front view attributes and change the value of Width from 30 to 45 the image gets bigger proportionaly in width and height, and then I try and change the Height from 30 to 25 and nothing happens. Gah, I'm also getting that dang problem where the grid wont show on top of the images, but I've already found out that can't be fixed. So many problems already and I'm just starting out....I see a long road ahead trying to learn this program.

[tanya]

Have you seen these free tutorials on setting up image planes?

http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/video_details.php?v=692

http://www.digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/video_details.php?v=23

[alloway]

I’ll make two suggestions

Get your images scaled correctly before you import them into Maya. You’ll have much more control. If you are importing more than one image plane (front, top, side, etc.), be sure it is the first thing you do when you create the scene. Go to the 4-panel mode and import the image planes into each view. It’s important that you don’t dolly or pan in any of the views because that will mess up the scales of the image planes.

If you want to see the grid lines, you can open the attribute editor for the image plane (View/Image Plane/Image Plane Attributes), and then adjust the Alpha Gain to something less than 1 to make the image plane transparent.

[MontyPython2004]

ok, let me explain better. I got a blueprint of a car from http://www.the-blueprints.com/ and used the tutorial found here: http://www.the-blueprints.com/index.php?tutorials/maya/

I spliced the images and followed exactly how it said and I kept proportions correct in photoshop when I saved them out so that all the heights and widths matched properly for each view. When I load them into Maya I come across the problem that the guy in that tutorial describes, where the front view image plane is bigger than the other two. He said to just change the width and height of that image plane to match the values you get in photoshop and if neccessary to make them a reasonable size to divide those values by ten, which I did. So for instance, the image height of the car I picked (specifically the front view) was 287 pixels (in photoshop) and its width was 450 pixels. So I went to the front image plane properties and typed 45 for width and immediatly the image plane changed size in both width and height. I then tried to type in 28.7 for the height and nothing happened. So that's my problem. I know how to set up image planes already and I already know about properly scaling them in photoshop, my problem seems to be either a bug or I'm not doing something right.

[alloway]

I experienced similar issues, so I avoid the problem by making all the image plane files exactly the same size before I import them into Maya. In Photoshop, I create one PSD file with a layer dedicated to each view. All views are centered in the middle of the canvas. I then turn off all but one layer, save it to a JPG and repeat the process for each view. Since all the files have identical dimensions, I do not have to adjust the image plane sizes after import.

[MontyPython2004]

ah, I see what your saying...I'll try that and see what happens


EDIT: It worked! Thanks a lot! :yes

[alloway]

Your welcome.