MRV can be installed in multiple flavors and in multiple ways. At first the mere amount of combinations might be staggering, but this guide will help you to narrow the options down according to your specific needs and permission level.
Another good news is, that this guide in fact explains how to install new python software in general, and can be applied not only to mrv, but to most other pure python package out there. If you know one, you know ‘em all.
First of all, if you want to develop using MRV, its recommended to jump right to the developer installation. This guide continues with installation instructions for those who seek a quick look or those who want to install MRV based software.
Basically, installing the Package [1] is as simple as putting it into your python interpreter’s PYTHONPATH, this guide only makes the effort trying to show you the most common ways to do it.
Note
If you want to skip all the reading at first, you may also watch the MRV Installation Guide on Youtube - you may choose your platform there.
All you need to use the Package [1] is a python interpreter compatible to your maya version. There you may choose between using the system’s python interpreter, or the one shipped with maya, called mayapy.
MRV’s recommended development interpreter is the system’s python interpreter, cpython, because:
Disadvantages on non-linux platforms are that:
If the latter statement is an issue for you, you will just want to go with mayapy instead, which is a bit more restricted and less flexible, but fully functional as well.
Besides the fact that cpython must be compiled for the same architecture as your maya installation, i.e. 32bit or 64bit, it must also be compatible with maya’s python binding.
Note
On windows, the system interpreter appears to only work if python 2.6 is used, but it might crash on 2.5 or earlier. MRV can always use mayapy as a fallback though.
The mrv script can be seen as something like a launchpad as it will configure mrv and derived projects, as well as the process’ environment, to allow maya standalone to be started properly. In that sense, it is much like a more general mayapy which serves the same purpose.
Coming with its duties of adjusting the python process’ environment, it needs python to be restarted, possibly in a different version. To accomplish this, it will use the python executables in your PATH.
On linux, this is automatically being handled for you, and mrv will find the expected executables named python<version>, <version> being 2.4, 2.5 or 2.6, if these are installed.
On windows, usually only the last installed python executable is in the PATH. To help mrv, you need to copy python.exe of the python installation of your choice and rename the copy to python<version>.exe where <version> is 24 , 25 , or 26. If mrv cannot find the executable, it will try to use mayapy instead.
The best way to install the Package [1] differs depending on the target audience. The following list of statements will resolve to viable options sorted by convenience if you follow down the branch that matches your situation:
- I have root/administrator permissions
- I want to use the system’s interpreter
- I want/have to use Mayapy
- I may not change the system
- Manual Installation (PYTHONPATH)
- Of course one could repeat single-person installation routines for several people, but this sort of uncontrolled redundancy is not advisable in most cases.
This installation type works for use with the system’s python interpreter, and usually root or administrator privileges are required. At the end of the procedure, MRV will be installed on your system.
If you have easy_install on your linux or osx system, it is as easy as typing into a shell [3]:
$ easy_install[-<py-version>] mrv
Where the optional <py-version> is 2.4, 2.5 or 2.6. If it worked, you should be able to run mrv and imrv right away:
$ mrv<py-version> -c "import mrv.maya.all"
$ imrv<py-version>
On a windows system, its the command prompt you would use:
> cd c:\Python<py-version>\Scripts
> easy_install.exe mrv
To verify mrv is installed correctly, you can execute the mrv script:
> ..\python.exe mrv -c "import mrv.maya.all"
Getting imrv to work with this setup on windows, please read the dedicated IMRV section.
Note
If you don’t have an easy_install binary yet, you can install it via the setuptools. The windows installation claims being for 32 bit installations only, but it works fine in 64 bit python installations as well.
All the following installation methods require you to retrieve a copy of the MRV distribution. There are two ways to do that, the most common one is to download a zip archive. The less common, but more sophisticated one is to clone a git distribution repository, including the advantage to make updates to MRV very easy.
The installation topics assume you have MRV downloaded and extracted already.
You can download a zip archive at one of the following sources:
Extract the archive into a folder of your choice.
Using a shell of your choice, checkout the git repository keeping the mrv source distribution:
$ git clone git://github.com/mrv-developers/mrv-distro.git mrv
On windows, the commandline would be the same, except that you would use the ‘Git Bash Here’ on a folder in the Explorer first to obtain a shell.
Note
The mrv source distribution repository is not meant for mrv development. If you intend to alter mrv’s sources, please proceed to the Developer Installation.
In all cases, you need root or administrator permissions to proceed, a shell [3] (linux and osx) or a command prompt, within which you change the directory to your the folder containing the downloaded MRV files:
$ cd /path/to/mrv
On windows:
> cd c:\path\to\mrv
Now you execute the setup.py script with the install command given. The python interpreter used to do that determines the installation location, hence here is where you will decide whether you want to install mrv in cpython or mayapy [2].
System Interpreter Linux + OSX:
$ # Installation using the system interpreter ( Linux and OSX )
$ sudo python<py-version> setup.py install
$ # Verify mrv works
$ mrv<py-version> -c "import mrv.maya.all"
Mayapy Linux:
$ # Installation using mayapy on linux
$ sudo /usr/autodesk/maya<version>/bin/mayapy setup.py install
$ # Verify mrv works
$ /usr/autodesk/maya<version>/bin/mrv -c "import mrv.maya.all"
Mayapy OSX:
$ # Installation using mayapy on osx
$ sudo /Applications/Autodesk/maya<version>/Maya.app/Contents/bin/mayapy setup.py install
$ # Verify mrv works ... yes, the path is real !
$ /Applications/Autodesk/maya<version>/Maya.app/Contents/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/bin/mrv -c "import mrv.maya.all"
Replace <py-version> with 2.4, 2.5 or 2.6, and <version> with your maya version respectively.
On windows, you would instead enter something like this for the system interpreter installation:
> # Installation using the system interpreter
> C:\Python<py-version>\python.exe setup.py install
> # Verify mrv works
> c:\Python<py-version>\python.exe c:\Python<py-version\Scripts\mrv -c "import mrv.maya.all"
whereas the following is used for the windows-mayapy installation:
> # Installation using mayapy
> "C:\Program Files[ (x86)]\Autodesk\Maya<version>\bin\mayapy.exe" setup.py install
> # Verify it works - the mrv and imrv scripts are not available in mayapy for windows unless you install them manually
> "C:\Program Files[ (x86)]\Autodesk\Maya<version>\bin\mayapy.exe" -c "mrv.maya.all"
Replace <py-version> with the version of your installed interpreter, usually 24 , 25 or 26. Alternatively, replace``<version>`` with the maya version you want to use.
To use imrv, some additional work will be needed, please read about it in the IMRV installation section.
Doing a manual installation would be done for one of the following reasons:
Before continuing, make sure that your toplevel mrv folder, the one which contains the setup.py script, is named mrv. This is not the case if your extracted it from an archive.
At this point, the mrv script is already operational, which means that you can use the mrv framework if you start your own scripts through mrv.
To use MRV as a framework within your python installation, you need to make sure it is in your python path. The previous installation methods essentially put MRV into an existing PYTHONPATH location, but it is also possible to alter the PYTHONPATH by changing the environment variable.
The PYTHONPATH environment variable contains the path in which python tries to find its modules, similar to the PATH in which executables are searched by the system.
To make it available to a python installation, you can change it in three spots which differ in their area of effect:
- Does not require root or administrator permissions
- Affects only the respective Maya installation excluding mayapy, hence you can only use MRV if maya is started in gui or batch mode.
- To make the changes
- Locate the Maya.env file, <version> is the desired maya version:
- ~/maya/<version> (linux)
- ~/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/<version>
- C:\Documents and Settings\<your_account>\My Documents\maya\<version>
- In your favorite text-editor, add or edit the line as follows:
On Linux and OSX:
SEP = : PYTHONPATH = /path/to/directory/with/mrvroot$SEP/what/was/here/previously # i.e. PYTHONPATH = /home/yourname/maya_python_modules$SEP/mnt/other/maya_python_modules # where 'maya_python_modules' contains the folder 'mrv'On Windows:
PYTHONPATH = X:/path/to/directory/with/mrvroot;Z:/what/was/here/before # i.e. PYTHONPATH = C:/maya_python_modules;Z:/maya_python_modules # where 'maya_python_modules' contains the folder 'mrv'
- Does not require root or administrator permissions
- Affects all python interpreters, including maya and mayapy that are launched from within the shell
- To make the changes
As the shells are different on linux and OSX, it really depends on your actual platform which file you have to alter to obtain a session-independent change. This is why we focus on the bash as a very common shell, and change the PYTHONPATH only temporarily. The code presented here would move into your respective shell configuration file, commonly named ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile:
$ export PYTHONPATH=/path/to/directory/with/mrvroot:$PYTHONPATH $ i.e. export PYTHONPATH=~/maya_python_modules:$PYTHONPATH # where 'maya_python_modules' contains the folder 'mrv'
- The system wide installation requires root permissions on linux. On windows system variables may be changed on per account basis without administrator permissions, but you will need these for changes that affect all accounts on the machine.
- As these changes usually require higher level permissions, and as people having these usually know how to set environment variables, I will not go into any details here. I ... refuse :P.
The site-packages folder is part of your python installation and is in the PYTHONPATH natively. If you want to put MRV in there, and if you have appropriate permissions to do so, please see the auto-installation section.
IMRV is a tool starting an interactive python interpreter session based on IPython, providing full maya python and mrv framework support. It is a great companion to quickly test objects for functionality, read docstrings, and to help building up some confidence for your new development framework as it becomes more approachable.
Please note that the following guide will do its best to explain the installation for the system’s python interpreter only, as it allows using easy_install. As a bonus, the installation on windows will be discussed in detail as well. Describing the installation for the non-default mayapy interpreter on all platforms lies beyond the scope of this text though.
- Easy install cannot install ipython on windows, instead you have to do it manually using installers which basically copy files into place.
- Installing IPython on Windows
- Actually you shouldn’t be here as easy_install will have retrieved everything required to use ipython and imrv on your system.
- Now it is time to use easy_install as it makes installing ipython as easy.
- Installing IPython on Linux and OSX
- If you have root or administrator permissions for your platform, you will have to use them now.
- Installing IPython on Windows
- Installing IPython on Linux and OSX
In order to safe you from some trouble, its recommended to watch the MRV for Windows Installation Guide on Youtube first, the written documentation only accompanies the video.
To install ipython on windows, you need to download two installers matching your python version.
- ipython: http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/Download ( works for 32 and 64 bit )
- pyreadline: https://launchpad.net/pyreadline/+download ( works for 32 and 64 bit )
Install both packages into your respective python installation. To verify the installation, open a command prompt and execute:
> cd x:\Python<py-version>\Scripts
> ipython.exe
If you see colors, it worked, if not, you are most likely to need ctypes, which can be downloaded here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ctypes/files .
When retrying to start ipython, it should be colored now. Now you can start ipython as follows:
> ..\python.exe imrv [maya-version]
The given maya-version must cause MRV to start the python version that you just installed ipython for, i.e. imrv 2010 will cause python26.exe to be executed.
Using easy_install, the ipython installation couldn’t be easier. You need root permissions and an internet connection for the following line to execute:
$ sudo easy_install-<py-version> ipython
$ # verify it worked
$ ipython
$ # imrv should work as well
$ imrv<py-version>
Having a clear upgrade path is important to make updates easy. Software isn’t static unless it is dead.
The best way to do it depends on the way you previously installed MRV:
Use the easy_install executable on your system to execute the following in a shell or command prompt:
$ easy_install -U mrv > easy_install.exe -U mrv
Enter the git repository you cloned previously and execute the following in a shell or windows git bash:
$ git fetch origin $ git merge origin/mrv-src
- Obtain the latest version in a compressed archive from one of the sources listed here and extract it into the same place.
Note
It is potentially unsafe to do so without prior deletion of the original folder as files may be deleted or renamed in the new archive, causing trouble if ‘merged’ into an older release’s folder.
As a (future) developer, please have a look at the dedicated development section for detailed information on how to get MRV (Preview) up and running.
| [1] | (1, 2, 3) The package may be MRV itself or a ‘derived’ package that uses MRV as framework. |
| [2] | Yes, technically ‘mayapy’ is cpython as well, but I needed a good short name for ‘System’s Python Interpreter’, any suggestions ? |
| [3] | (1, 2) A shell on OSX is provided by the terminal application. Enter ‘terminal’ in spotlight to start it if it is your first time. |