Maya Python Paths

Remarks#

This page should cover various ways to set up Maya python paths - userSetup, maya.env, environment variables and so on

Using userSetup.py

Add arbitrary paths to the Maya Python environment in the userSetup.py file. userSetup.py is a Python file (not a module) which gets automatically executed on Maya startup. userSetup.py can live in a number of locations, depending on the os and environment variables.

When Maya starts, it will execute the contents of the userSetup file. Adding Python paths here will allow it to find modules:

 import sys
 sys.path.append("/path/to/my/modules")

This will make Python module files in ‘/path/to/my/modules’ available for import using the standard import directive.

For more advanced setups, the site module can do the same using the addsitedir() function. site.addsitedir() supports .pth files which configures multiple paths in one go.

For example, three folders of unrelated Python could be arranged like this:

  python_files
  | 
  +---- studio
  |      +  module1.py
  |      +  module2.py
  |     
  +---- external
         |
         +---- paid
         |      + paidmodule.py
         |
         +---- foss
                + freemodule.py

Using sys.path directly you’d have to add python_files/studio, python_files/external/paid and python_files/external/paid manually. However you could add a .pth file to the root of python_files that looked like this:

  studio
  external/paid
  external/foss

and call this in userSetup:

 import site
 site.addsitedir("/path/to/python_files")

and you’ll get all of the paths in one go.

Using Environment Variables

The Maya Python interpreter works like a regular Python intepreter, so it will use the same environment variables to find importable files as any other Python 2.6 or 2.7 installation (described in more detail in the Python documentation.

If there is no other python installation on your machine you can use the environment variables to point at the location of your Python files for Maya (if you do have another Python, changing these for Maya’s sake may interfere with your other Python installation - you’d be better off using a userSetup or startup script). Set variable PYTHONPATH so it includes your search paths. If you’re editing the variable to include multiple paths remember that on *NIX systems the paths are separated by colons:

  export PYTHONPATH="/usr/me/maya/shared:/usr/me/other_python"

where on Windows they are semicolons:

  setx  PYTHONPATH C:/users/me/maya;//server/shared/maya_python

Multiple configurations

One advantage of using environment variables is that you can quickly re-configure a maya install to load tools and scripts from different locations for different projects. The easiest way to do this is to set the PYTHONPATH right before launching Maya so that you inherit the necessary paths for this maya session. For example

  set PYTHONPATH=C:/users/me/maya;//server/shared/maya_python
  maya.exe

will launch Maya (on Windows) with the paths C:/users/me/maya and //server/shared/maya_python available for use. You could launch a second copy of Maya from a new commandline using a different set command and the second Maya would use different paths.

Because it’s hard for most end-users to type these kinds of things, it’s a good idea to automate the process with a batch or shell file that sets the local environment variables and launches maya. note: we need examples of this for .bat and .sh files In this system you’d distribute a .bat or .sh file for each project you were supporting and your users would launch maya using those; launching maya without the bat file would revert them to the default Maya configuration without any custom scripts.