MTOR Installation

To install MTOR, first follow the instructions for installing the software on your platform and setting up your user environment. Once the software is installed you'll need to set up your user environment to control which versions you'll use. The RenderMan Artist Tools utilize a combination of your searchpath and environment variables to specify versions and locations of the various components of the toolset. You'll find that this simple mechanism allows you to quickly switch between versions of RAT and RenderMan.

Once you've set up your user environment, you should configure Alfred for network rendering support. Out of the box Alfred will be functional, however, with minor configuration steps, you should be able to use Alfred to dispatch rendering over your computer network and dramatically improve your rendering throughput.

Loading the MTOR Plugin

mtor.so (on Linux), mtor.mll (on Windows), or mtor.lib (on OS X) is the component of the MTOR package that is the Maya plugin. After setting up the user environment as described in the installation instructions (done automatically in the Windows install) you'll be able to load the plugin as follows:

Using Maya's interactive plugin manager (Windows->General Editors->Plug-in Manager), find mtor.so/mll/lib. If MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH has been set in your environment, the plugin should appear in the menu. If not, you can click the browse button to select it explicitly. Once the name of the plugin shows up in the Plug-in Manager, check loaded. If you want the plugin loaded automatically whenever you open Maya, check auto load as well.

Upon loading, MTOR installs a RenderMan menu item in Maya's Rendering menubar. If the RenderMan menu item does not appear, make sure that you've properly established your environement. Also, refer to the window from which you launched Maya as well as your console for diagnostics.

Allowing Multiple Versions of Maya & MTOR to Coexist

As new versions of Maya are released, you may keep an older version installed and need to switch back and forth between them. In previous versions of the Artist Tools, managing the different versions' plugins was handled in the plugin manager. With RAT 6.5, however, this is handled automatically, assuming that your environment is properly configured. This means that (on Windows and Linux) your MAYA_LOCATION environment variable or (on OS X) the MAYA_LOCATION entry in the Maya.env file in /Library/Preferences/Alias/maya/version/ is properly set, and:

• On Windows, make sure that your PATH does not include versions of Maya's shared libraries prior to the version you are using.
• On Linux, make sure that your LD_LIBRARYN32_PATH or LD_LIBRARY_PATH points to the correct version of Maya's shared libraries. Note that this should happen automatically if you've set this variable to reference $MAYA_LOCATION/lib, as suggested in the "Environment Variables" section of the installation documents.
• On OS X, the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH in the aforementioned Maya.env file should be pointing to $MAYA_Location/MacOS.

Using Maya Files Created With Older Versions of Maya and MTOR

When a Maya file is written a couple lines are added to the file indicating which version of Maya is being used, any Maya plugins that are required, and any specific MTOR nodes that are needed, such as “mtorsubdiv” or “mtorcoordsys”. For example, a file created with Maya 6.0 that uses the Maya Fur plugin and MTOR subdivision surfaces, would include the following lines at the top:

requires maya "6.0";
requires "Fur" "6.0";
requires "mtorsubdiv" "1.1";

Previous versions of MTOR would also add a line for the MTOR plugin itself, e.g. requires mtor "5.5.1". This can potentially present a problem when you use that file with a new version of Maya and MTOR, and an older version of mtor.so exists in your MAYA_PLUGIN_PATH. Even if you resave the Maya file with a newer version of Maya and MTOR, the old requires mtor "X.X" line will remain in the file, because the name of the plugin has changed.

To avoid problems you may either manually delete the old "requires mtor" line from your Maya file, or ensure that mtor.so doesn't exist in your MAYA_PLUGIN_PATH.

What if I need HELP!!!?

Check out the RenderMan Support Forum.

If that fails, try customer service:
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