Installation of the Maya plugin ​

The latest version of Simplygon 10 can be downloaded from our Simplygon website. There are currently two choices, the Simplygon 10 installer and the Simplygon 10 API archive. The installer might be preferred as it not only installs the Simplygon Maya plug-ins (optional) and Simplygon Python API but it also installs all the required runtime dependencies.

Support for Autodesk Maya

• 2018 - 2025

Automatic installation ​

To download the Simplygon installer, go to the Simplygon website and locate the "Full SDK Installer", click download. Once the download has completed, start the Simplygon installer and follow the instructions presented on the screen. For more details about the installer, options and license setup, see Simplygon installation.

Maya 2018 to Maya 2024 ​

The Simplygon installer copies the plug-in binaries to your Maya installations plug-ins folder. When the Simplygon installation has completed, verify that the Simplygon plug-in(s) are found by Maya gets loaded properly by visiting the Maya plug-in manager (Window -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in manager), if not, tick "Load" next to the plug-in(s). If you want the plug-in(s) to automatically load in the future, also tick "Auto Load", then go to Maya's "File"-menu and hit "Save preferences".

Maya 2025 ​

The Simplygon installer does not copy the plug-in binaries to your Maya installations plug-ins folder. See Add plug-in path to Maya for how to configure maya to locate and load the Simplygon plug-in(s).

NOTE: The Simplygon installer will attempt to copy some necessary support files from Maya into Simplygon's Maya plugin folder. If you install Maya after Simplygon on your machine you will need to manually copy these supporting files. see Copy support files

Manual installation ​

The Simplygon API archive allows a more customized installation. See Simplygon prerequisites for a complete list of required dependencies. For a manual installation of Simplygon 10, extract the downloaded archive to a local directory on your computer (we'll use C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/), all relative file-paths in this section will be relative to this directory.

To make the Simplygon plug-in(s) aware of the Simplygon runtime, batch processor, Python API and related files three environment variables need to be registered. Simply execute the SetSimplygon10Path.ps1 PowerShell script from the root folder of the extracted archive (C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/) to set the environment variables. The environment variables will be bound to this specific directory, removing or renaming and folders or files will most likely result in unexpected behavior. See Simplygon environment variables for specific details.

For manual installation of the Simplygon Maya plug-in(s):

• Installation into Maya plug-in directory
• Add plug-in path to Maya

Installation into Maya plug-in directory (not recommended) ​

Copy all files located in C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/Maya/Maya<version> into C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya <version>/bin/plug-ins of the Maya installation directory.

You can verify that the Simplygon plug-in(s) gets loaded properly by visiting the Maya plug-in manager (Window -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in manager), if not, tick "Load" next to the plug-in(s). If you want the plug-in(s) to automatically load in the future, also tick "Auto Load", then go to Maya's "File"-menu and hit "Save preferences".

Add plug-in path to Maya (recommended) ​

A convenient solution solution to get Maya to locate and load the Simplygon plug-in(s) is to modify the Maya environment file (Documents/maya/<version>/Maya.env) and add the Simplygon plug-in folder to the MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH variable. If Maya.env does not exist, create it and then set the plug-in path as below. If there already is a path assigned to the plug-in variable, use semicolon as separator (;) and append the new path.

Modified Maya.env:

MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/Maya/Maya2025

After modifying the environment path, verify that the Simplygon plug-in(s) gets loaded properly by visiting the Maya plug-in manager (Window -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in manager), if not, tick "Load" next to the plug-in(s). If you want the plug-in(s) to automatically load in the future, also tick "Auto Load", then go to Maya's "File"-menu and hit "Save preferences".

Copy support files (Maya2025 only) ​

The Maya2025 Simplygon plugin requires some additional support files provided by Maya to function. If you already have a Maya installation on your computer, the Simplygon installer will automatically copy these files to the Simplygon plugin folder. For a manual install, or if you install Maya after simplygon, you will need to copy these files manually:

• Locate the Maya installation's bin directory (defaults to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2025\bin)
• Copy openmayacs.dll and openmayacs.runtimeconfig.json into the Simplygon plug-in folder.

Next steps ​

Get to know how to use the Simplygon plug-in:

• Getting started - UI

• Getting started - Scripting

• Simple reduction - Scripting