Black Image Planes when importing into each viewport

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I would first like to say I did post this issue on the digitaltutors forums as well, because this issue is possibly related to them.

Quick Background of the situation that led me to my problem: Basically I am following a course from them, in particular "Introduction to modeling in Maya". I am on lesson #7 where we import the images for the project the course will teach me to model. I downloaded the source material. 

My Issue: When I import the images for each viewport, they all show up, but are completely black, yet the sample image on the attribute editor shows it. See Image below: 

I have tried to import different reference images of my own making, and those show up just fine. The source images provided by digitaltutors are just .jpg files as are the ones I tried of my own. I mean the fact that mine show up, but not theirs seems to indicate a issue with their files, but I mean, they are just images. They show up fine when I open them up in other programs.

The only thing to mention is that I am using MayaLT 2017, and this course was made for users using the full version of Maya, but as I understand it as far as modeling goes, the programs are identical?

Thanks,

 -RC

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Well I guess I have at least found a work around for my issue. I found this thread for a unrelated issue (or maybe it is I don't know)

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-lt-general/graphic-glitch-in-viewport-maya-2014-lt-when-manipulat...

It states to try to change the rendering engine settings in the display preferences. Mine was defaulted to OpenGL - Core Profile (Compatibility) A fix mentioned in that thread said to change it to OpenGL - Legacy. By doing this I am now allowed to see those images in the planes that were black before.

I would consider this a victory, however the thread goes on to say that if that fixes the issue, then I might not have a DX11 Video card, and therefore would lose some shader effects. Well I do have a DX11 card (Nvidia GTX980) and I tried selecting DirectX 11 for the rendering engine. In this case two things changed:

1. The Image planes for those exact jpg files I was having issues with are now no longer black, however they are just transparent. Meaning I can see the green outline, but in the center is nothing, just the grid, so no help per say. Also again its just these jpgs, other ones show up just fine like before.

2. When I change the viewport to see all 4 views, I get this error in the script editor: // Warning: file: D:/AutoDesk/MayaLT2017/scripts/startup/setNamedPanelLayout.mel line 131: Panel size cannot accommodate all requested Heads Up Display elements. // This error does not happen when I am set to either of the OpenGL modes. Now I also do not notice any issues so far with this error either.

I guess my bottom line question is this: 

I am just starting out learning modeling here, so if I just leave the Render Engine to OpenGL - Legacy is that really a big deal? I suppose I could always change it back to the (compatibility) one or even the DX11 (assuming that error is no big issue) when I later work with my own content, because apparently this issue really is isolated to the digitaltutors.com source file jpgs so far. And I would for sure not want to lose out on any quality or features by having to stay on legacy, in case I incur other problems down the road for not being on legacy.

Thank you!

-RC