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 - 2026
IMPORTANT NOTE
Simplygon does not work with Maya 2020.0 as it has issues with registering commands. Please update to Maya 2020.2.
Maya 2024 introduces a new material model; the standard surface material model. This material model is not yet supported by Simplygon (legacy material models are still supported).
Maya 2024, 2025 and 2026 'dagPose -restore -bindpose' has issues with skinning evaluation, for this reason the Simplygon plugin will export the data in current pose instead of the restored bindpose. For earlier versions of Maya the default behaviour is to restore the pose to bindpose.
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.
The Simplygon installer uses Mayas module packaging to distribute the plug-in(s) by adding the environment variable MAYA_MODULE_PATH and pointing it to the installation module file, allowing Maya to find the plug-in(s). 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".
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, some environment variables need to be registered. Simply execute the SetupSimplygon.ps1 PowerShell script from the root folder of the extracted archive (C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/) to do this. The environment variables will be bound to this specific directory, removing or renaming folders or files will most likely result in unexpected behavior. See Simplygon environment variables for specific details.
Alternatively, you can run the InstallPortable.ps1 script located in the Maya subfolder directly:
cd C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/Maya
.\InstallPortable.ps1IMPORTANT NOTE
Maya 2025 and later requires openmayacs.dll and openmayacs.runtimeconfig.json from the local Maya installation to be present in each version-specific plugin folder. Both SetupSimplygon.ps1 -MayaPackage and InstallPortable.ps1 handle this automatically by looking up the Maya installation from the registry.
For manual installation of the Simplygon Maya plug-in(s):
Add plug-in module path to Maya (recommended)
The Simplygon plug-in comes with a SimplygonMayaModule.mod file that will automatically point Maya to the correct plug-in(s). All you have to do is to point Maya to it by adding the environment variable MAYA_MODULE_PATH and point it to the folder containing the module file.
MAYA_MODULE_PATH : C:/SimplygonSDK_10.4/Maya
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".
Add plug-in path to Maya
A convenient 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 (when using the Simplygon zip):
MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = C:/SimplygonSDK_10.0/Maya/SimplygonMaya2026
Modified Maya.env (when using the Simplygon installer):
MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = C:/Program Files/Simplygon/10/Maya/SimplygonMaya2026
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".
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".
Next steps
Get to know how to use the Simplygon plug-in: