The reference editor is a widget to review reference footage and add it to your maya scene as an image plane, faser. It's designed to look and behave similar to RV. It handles cutting the video, cropping and flipping, converting framerates and resolution and managing the files, so you don't have to! Options to export in .jpeg and .png and choose a start frame are available.
- Drop your video or image into maya's viewport.
- Edit in the widget.
- Follow the dialogs to create the image plane.
| Description | Shortcut | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Frame step | ,, Arrow Left, ., Arrow Right |
| 2 | Set range start and end | [ ] |
| 3 | Flop | Shift + X |
| 4 | Crop | C |
| 5 | Flip | Shift + Y |
| 6 | Retime | Shift + F |
| 7 | Framerate at which to export the image sequence | |
| 8 | Resolution at which to export the images | |
| 9 | Export format | |
| 10 | Start number of the image sequence | |
| 11 | Reset | |
| 12 | Settings | |
| Play/pause toggle | L, Alt + V, Space |
- Focus mode: scroll over the video to scroll through frames more slowly
- Interactive slider handles
- If you drop an image in the viewport it will make the image plane for the sequence. Assumes editing has been done elsewhere.
SETTINGS WINDOW
- Copy path to clipboard
- Edit path to where you save your references
- Cache toggle ON/OFF
- Reset cache settings to default
- Cache size in frames. Maximum number of frames to be held in memory
- Decode these many frames ahead of the playhead
- Decode these many frames behind the playhead
- Create an image plane attached to a camera in Maya
- Create a floating image plane in Maya
- Python3 and pyside2 (Maya 2024)
- Python3 and pysyde6 (Maya 2025/2026)
-Test log
Tested in Maya 2024 Windows
Tested in Maya 2025 Windows
Worked in Maya 2022 Linux
Worked in Maya 2023 Linux
Worked in Maya 2025 Linux
Worked in Maya 2026 Windows
- Download the repository and extract files.
- Drop dragAndDropInstall.py in Maya.
- Restart maya.
For the drop install to work, you will need internet access on your machine.
- The plugin requires ffmpeg. Please install ffmpeg on your computer.
If the installation fails, you will have to do the last step manually (make cv2 available for the tool).
Download prebuilt cv2 and numpy wheels compatible with your system for python3.10 they are available here:
https://pypi.org/project/opencv-python/#files
http://pypi.org/project/numpy/#files
You can extract the files with 7zip, then take all the extracted files to:
C:\Users\yourUser\Documents\maya\modules\referenceEditor\scripts\cv2Bundle
It should look like this:
C:\Users\yourUser\Documents\maya\modules\referenceEditor\scripts\cv2Bundle\cv2
C:\Users\yourUser\Documents\maya\modules\referenceEditor\scripts\cv2Bundle\numpy
Restart maya and drop a video into the viewport to check it's working.
- The plugin requires ffmpeg. Please install ffmpeg on your computer.
Delete "referenceEditor.mod" and "referenceEditor" folder from your Maya modules folder. "C:\Users\yourUser\Documents\maya\modules"
Delete "userSetup.mel" from your maya version scripts folder. "C:\Users\yourUser\Documents\maya\2024\scripts"