General variables
 
 
 
MAYA_ALT_EN

If you have multiple license files in your FlexLM directory you can set this environment variable to uniquely define your Maya license file and speed up the Maya start time.

For example, set:

MAYA_ALT_EN = <
 pathToLicenseFile
>\Flexlm\maya.lic

where <pathToLicenseFile> is the path to your license file location.

MAYA_DEBUG_ENABLE_CRASH_REPORTING (Windows and Linux)

When Maya encounters a fatal error, this variable writes a crash report file (MayaCrashLog[yymmdd.hhmm].log) to the directory specified with the TMP environment variable. This file contains a detailed description of what Maya was doing when the failure occurred.

To enable this option, set the value equal to 1. To disable it, set the value to 0 (zero) or leave it undefined.

MAYA_DISABLE_BACKSPACE_DELETE (Windows and Linux)

Disables the functionality of the Backspace key. To enable this option, set the value equal to 1. To disable it, set the value to 0 (zero) or leave it undefined.

MAYA_FORCE_REF_READ

By default, if you reference the same file twice, on file open Maya copies the existing nodes instead of re-reading them from disk. Occasionally, using this built-in multiple reference optimization feature of file referencing can cause errors. This environment variable turns off the file referencing optimization and forces reference files to be explicitly read in all cases. This fixes Maya's behavior in some situations that would otherwise be evaluated incorrectly.

MAYA_PARALLEL_MEMCPY

Set this environment variable to 1 to enable parallel memory copy. In some cases, parallel memory copy is faster on Opteron and Nehalem based systems. However, it may also be slower on Xeon systems, in which case you may want to disable parallel memory.

Note

Another factor that may impact speed is the workload running in Maya.

MAYA_IP_TYPE

Use this environment variable to set your IP version, for example, ipv4.

MAYA_HELP_URL

This variable is used to override where help files are found. Maya pre-appends this value to its help paths to create a string which is passed to the browser.

You can use this to point Maya to a central help server, or set it to a http: URL to have Maya get its help files from a web site instead of the Maya help on your hard drive.

Incorrect use of this flag will prevent Maya Help from working within Maya.

MAYA_OVERRIDE_UI

If this environment variable is set, Maya won’t load the file initialLayout.mel, which creates the interface. You must specify an alternate file to run (for example, MAYA_OVERRIDE_UI = test.mel). This variable should only be specified if you want to completely replace Maya’s UI for your own, custom-programmed interface.

MAYA_PAINT_EFFECTS_THREADS

Paint Effects uses the multiple processors on your machine when painting and rendering. You can set this variable to control the number of processors used by Maya. The minimum is one (1) and the maximum is three (3).

WINEDITOR (Windows, Linux)

Allows you to override the Expression Editor and use your own editor. The editor must be set to run in the foreground.

MAYA_UI_LANGUAGE (Windows, Mac OS X)

Allows you to override the language setting of the current operating system. This is most useful when you want to run Maya in English on a Japanese (Windows) operating system; otherwise, Maya picks up the language of the operating system and will always run in Japanese.

Set the value of this environment variable to en_US or ja_JP.

ImportantYou must set the MAYA_UI_LANGUAGE environment variable via the System Preferences. Seting this environment variable in the Maya.env file does not affect Maya behavior. For more information on how to set this environment variable via the System Preferences, see Run Maya in English within a Japanese environment.
MAYA_DISALLOW_DUPLICATE_ATTRIBUTE_NAMES

This environment variable is disabled if it is not set. Set it to any string to enable it. It is disabled by default.

In Maya 2011 and below, no explicit test existed to ensure that attribute names were unique within a node. This could lead to ambiguity with commands such as setAttr NODE.DUPLICATED_ATTR 3.0. Some existing scripts, files, and/or plugins may rely on this ambiguous behavior; therefore, for backwards compatibility, this environment variable is introduced in Maya 2012. However, you are encouraged to discontinue this ambiguous behavior. In Maya 2012, the default is the existing behavior, which allows duplicate attribute names.