Maya Movie Importing

[KevinJW]

Right now in Maya the only type of movie I can import is a .mov. And the movies I edit are .avi. So is there a way to import a .avi into Maya?


Also how do you get Maya to render a movie without having to render it frame by frame and then putting them togeather in a different program.

[Black]

Kevin
Don't get me wrong.. but are you actually using the help function or visiting Alias's documentations that you have the right to access as a MaYA user?
Most of the questions you are asking are 'to be known' situations that a person wanting to create stuff at that level would already know.
I would preffer to encourage you to ask, and it would prove useful to many that would browse the forums with simiallar questions.
But I doubt it sould do you personally as much good as your individual searches and conclusions.
Do always ask. Ross-3DT, Myself, or many of the other members would love to reply. And I believe we always shall. But thats not exactly the point I am getting at.
As for your Question:
Altough MaYA accepts movie formats.. if you plan on something like procedural textures or animated textures.. or even rotoskopping. You would be much better off with image sequences. Since it is based on per frame rate. And a sharp raster is required; quicktime fits it's needs. I heard of methods of importing other formats. But I had never use for such a task. Especially for *.avi. especially since it tends to 'blend' the frames to each other. That I can't help you on. You may want to chek on the free plug-ins in Highend3D.

As for rendering such image sequences or simiallar; There are a variaty of methodS. The batch render option under the Render menu. Or having a dricet output by running a playblast (If you have a video compressor. You can directly plug that into the plablasts output...

If you go and open the common options tab in the render globals. You shall notice that there is a frame/Animation extension format setting for the output of sequences that Fchek can later on save as a movie file. Or directly you can select Avi from the image format menu (again you will notice that you are able to set the start and end frame).

If you do a search through your manual with these in mind. I am sure you can get your answers.