Installing the plug-in
Contents |
Contents of the build folder
Upon purchasing Fracture, you will be sent an email with a download link and login details.Use these to download your copy of Fracture. The Fracture download is a compressed file. Use winzip, winrar or gzip to extract the content.
Once extracted, you will see 3 folders:
- lib: this folder contains the actual Fracture plugin for each OS and Maya version. You obviously proceed with the folder relevant to your system. IMPORTANT: copy the "fracture_plugins" folder in the same location as fracture.so/fracture.mll/fracture.bundle (for more info about that see below). The "fracture_plugins" folder contains plugins used by Fracture. In this case the Bullet solver. Do no attempt to load this plugin through the plug-in manager. This will happen automagically when you load Fracture.
- mel: this folder contains the MEL scripts that support the plugin. For installation see below.
- devkit: this folder contains the API that allows developers to connect Fracture with external solvers.
Installing the plug-in (fracture.so/fracture.bundle/fracture.mll)
The FractureFX plug-in needs to be installed to your Maya plug-in path. The path varies from OS to OS. Below is a basic reference of the standard paths. Those on a production pipeline may find that their paths are altered and don't reflect the examples below.
Official documentation about plug-in paths can be found here.
A note about the plugin directories. A default Maya installation may not create these folders by default. However if you do create (and name correctly) these directories, Maya will recognize them. Those working in a production pipeline may have to request the installation be handled by IT.
Linux
$MAYA_APP_DIR/maya/2012/plug-ins $MAYA_APP_DIR/maya/plug-ins /usr/autodesk/userconfig/maya/2012/plug-ins /usr/autodesk/userconfig/maya/plug-ins $MAYA_LOCATION/bin/plug-ins
Mac OS
<user's homefolder>/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/2012 <user's homefolder>/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/2012 /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya Inside the Maya package in /Applications/Maya 2012/Maya.app
Windows
<user’s directory>/Documents/maya/2012/plug-ins <user’s directory>/Documents/maya/plug-ins <maya_directory>/bin/plug-ins
Installing the MEL scripts
The MEL scripts need to be placed into a valid script path.
Linux:
$MAYA_APP_DIR/maya/2012/scripts $MAYA_APP_DIR/maya/scrips /usr/autodesk/userconfig/maya/2012/scripts /usr/autodesk/userconfig/maya/scripts
Mac OS
<user's homefolder>/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/2012 <user's homefolder>/ Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/2012 /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya Inside the Maya package in /Applications/Maya 2012/Maya.app
Windows:
<user’s directory>/Documents/maya/projects/default/mel <user’s directory>/Documents/maya/2012/scripts <user’s directory>/Documents/maya/scripts
If you are still having issues, the follow MEL commands can be used to print all the paths that Maya is looking in for plug-ins and scripts. When executing these commands, make sure you are using a MEL tab in the script editor, and not a Python tab!
getenv "MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH" getenv "MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH"
Loading the plug-in in Maya's plug-in manager
To load Fracture in Maya, locate it in the Plug-in Manager (fracture.mll/fracture.so) and tick the check box on.