Installing the plug-in

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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:

  1. 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.
  2. mel: this folder contains the MEL scripts that support the plugin. For installation see below.
  3. 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"

To load Fracture in Maya, locate it in the Plug-in Manager (fracture.mll) and tick the check box on.

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