Maya integration (preview)

The Simplygon 8.x installer will install the Simplygon Preview plug-in for all supported versions of Autodesk Maya (currently 2018-2019) into its representing "Documents/Simplygon/UI/Maya/Maya<version>Preview" folder. The following sections describe how to get the Simplygon Maya plug-in up and running. Please note that Simplygon is not supported on the 32-bit platform.

Installation into Maya plug-in directory

For manual installation of the Simplygon plug-in, copy the plug-in (.mll), the Simplygon Runtime (.dll) and the config file (.cfg) located in "Documents/Simplygon/8/UI/Maya/Maya<version>Preview" into the "bin/plug-ins" directory of the Maya installation. The Maya installation directory defaults to "C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya <version>/bin/plug-ins".

Plug-in files:

• Maya<version>Preview/SimplygonMaya<version>PreviewReleasex64.mll
• Maya<version>Preview/SimplygonSDKRuntimeRelease64.dll
• Maya<version>Preview/SimplygonPlugin.config

Batch-processor files:

• Maya<version>Preview/SimplygonBatch.exe
• Maya<version>Preview/SimplygonSDKRuntimeRelease64.dll

License-application (optional)

• Maya<version>Preview/BatchProcessor/LicenseApplication.exe

Copying the SimplygonBatch.exe is optional, the only requirements are that the SimplygonPlugin.config is pointing at SimplygonBatch.exe and that a copy of SimplygonSDKRuntimeRelease64.dll exists in the same directory.

The content of SimplygonPlugin.config should have the following structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="BatchProcessor" value="C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Simplygon\8\UI\Maya\Maya2019Preview\SimplygonBatch.exe"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

The LicenseApplication.exe is optional, although a valid license is required to run the both the Simplygon plug-in and the batch processor.

At last, verify that the plug-in has been loaded in the Maya plug-in manager (Window -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in manager), if it is not loaded, tick the "Load"-checkbox for the Simplygon plug-in. You may want to tick "Auto Load" if you want the plugin to automatically load in the future, but you will have to go to Maya's "File"-menu and hit "Save preferences" to make it stick through sessions.

Add existing plug-in path to Maya

An alternative solution to get Maya to load the Simplygon plug-in is to modify the maya environment file to point to the Simplygon plug-in folder by setting the MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH variable, usually found in "Documents/maya/<version>/Maya.env".

Modified Maya.env:

MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Simplygon\8\UI\Maya\Maya2019Preview

After modifying the environment path, start Maya and verify that the Simplygon plug-in has been loaded in the plug-in manager (Window -> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in manager), if it is not loaded, tick the "Load"-checkbox for the Simplygon plug-in. You may want to tick "Auto Load" if you want the plugin to automatically load in the future, but you will have to go to Maya's "File"-menu and hit "Save preferences" to make it stick through sessions.

The content of SimplygonPlugin.config should have the following structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="BatchProcessor" value="C:\Users\UserName\Documents\Simplygon\8\UI\Maya\Maya2019Preview\SimplygonBatch.exe"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

The LicenseApplication.exe is optional, although a valid license is required to run the both the Simplygon plug-in and the batch processor.

Note

The Maya Preview plug-in does not require a installation of Simplygon, all that is required are the files listed above, runtime dependencies such as Visual C++ Runtime, as well as a valid Simplygon license. If the plug-ins are to be distributed separately it might be a good idea to provide the License Application in the same package.

Note

This is the non-Grid version of the plugin and does not support Simplygon Grid or the Simplygon UI!