Installing the Maya Developer Toolkit on a 64bit Windows Environment

The Maya Developer Toolkit, also referred to as the Maya devkit, is used to create custom plug-ins, scripts, and applications that extend Maya's capabilities.

Requirements

The Maya devkit requires Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 and CMake.

CMake is available to download from https://cmake.org/download/.

Download and Set Up the Developer Toolkit

The Maya devkit is available from The Maya Developer Center.

Scroll to the bottom of the Maya Developer Center page to find the devkit packages. Click on the appropriate link to download the devkit.

  1. Unzip the devkit zip package to your C:\Users\<Username>\ directory, creating the C:\Users\<Username>\devkitBase\ directory.

  2. Create the C:\Users\<Username>\devkitBase\plug-ins directory. This will be where you will keep the plug-ins and scripts you create.

  3. Create the plug-ins, scripts, and icons directories under C:\Users\<Username>\devkitBase\plug-ins .

  4. Modify the C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\maya\2019\Maya.env file to create three path variables that point to your plug-ins and scripts:

    MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH=C:\Users\<Username>\devkitBase\plug-ins\plug-ins
    MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH=C:\Users\<Username>\devkitBase\plug-ins\scripts
    XBMLANGPATH=C:\Users\<Username>\devkitBase\plug-ins\icons
    

    Note: The C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\maya\2019\ directory is created when Maya is launched for the first time. Launch Maya if you do not see this directory.

    Maya will use these paths to automatically discover the plug-ins and scripts in these directories. If these paths are not set, you will need to open Maya's Plug-ins Manager and manually browse to the location of the plug-ins and scripts to load them.

  5. Set the DEVKIT_LOCATION and MAYA_LOCATION user environment variables.

    DEVKIT_LOCATION must point to the location of your devkit installation.

    MAYA_LOCATION must point to the location of your Maya installation.

    Note: Maya is installed to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2019 by default. Verify the location of your Maya installation before setting MAYA_LOCATION.

    In the Control Panel, navigate to Control Panel > System and Security > System and select Advanced System Settings from the left-hand menu. This will open the System Properties pop-up menu.

    Click on Environment Variables

    In the Environment Variables pop-up window, click on New under User Variables.

    Enter DEVKIT_LOCATION in the Variable name field, and enter the path to the devkit in the Variable value field.

    Click on OK. The new environment value will appear in the list of user variables.

    Repeat this process for MAYA_LOCATION.

  6. Add the path to the Maya bin directory to your Path environment variable.

    Note: The Maya bin directory is located under the Maya installation directory. It will be located at C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2019\bin by default. Verify its location before adding it to the Path variable.

    Select the Path variable and click on Edit.

    In the Edit environment variables window, select New.

    Once the path has been added, click on OK.

    The window will close. You can now exit your system settings and the Control Panel.

  7. Open a new command prompt and verify that your environment variables are set.

    Note: Because changes to environment variables are not applied to command prompts that are already open, it is important that you close open command prompts and open new command prompts before using the devkit.

    Use the echo command to verify that the changes to your environment variables have been applied. For example, to verify that the MAYA_LOCATION environment variable is set, type echo %MAYA_LOCATION%.

    Once this is verified, you can begin using the Maya devkit.