Installing 3ds Max and Maya Crosswalk plug-ins

Within XSI, the File > Crosswalk > Export to Max and File > Crosswalk > Export to Maya options output a dotXSI 6.0 file which is currently the optimal format for exporting to a Crosswalk-enabled 3ds Max or Maya installation. 3ds Max and Maya and 8 can read the dotXSI format using the Crosswalk for Max and Crosswalk for Maya plug-ins, respectively.

These plug-ins are available automatically with a typical install of XSI. You can find them in the Addons folder of your XSI installation path:

 <xsi install path>\Addons\MAXConverter\
 <xsi install path>\Addons\MayaConverter\

Neither 3ds Max nor Maya need to be installed on the same system as XSI to enable data transfer. All you need to do is install the plug-ins to the appropriate plug-ins folder of your Maya or 3ds Max installation. See Installing the Crosswalk Integrations (http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/xsidocs/xwalk_setup.htm#Rmixwalk_setup) for the details.

For your convenience, the instructions for manually "installing" these Crosswalk integrations are described below:

Crosswalk for MAX

• Copy the dotXSIConverter4Max.dle file to your 3ds MAX "plugins" folder. For example, C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3dsMax9\plugins.

Crosswalk for MAYA

On Windows:

• Copy the dotXSISceneConverter.mll file to your MAYA "plug-ins" folder. For example, C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya8.5\bin\plug-ins.
• Copy the dotXSIExpOptionsSL.mel file to your MAYA "scripts\others" folder. For example, C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya8.5\scripts\others.
• Copy the dotXSIImpOptionsSL.mel file to your MAYA "scripts\others" folder. For example, C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya8.5\scripts\others.

On Linux:

• Copy the dotXSISceneConverter.mso file to your MAYA "plug-ins" folder.
• Rename the dotXSISceneConverter.mso file to dotXSISceneConverter.so.
• Copy the dotXSIExpOptionsSL.mel file to your MAYA "scripts/others" folder.
• Copy the dotXSIImpOptionsSL.mel file to your MAYA "scripts/others" folder.

To enable the plug-in on either platform:

• In MAYA, choose Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager...
• Find the dotXSISceneConverter plug-in and select the loaded and Auto load checkboxes.
• You can also use the loadPlugin MEL command from the command line.

Supported Features

Refer to the following topics for a listing of the features supported when importing and exporting between XSI and Crosswalk-enabled installations of 3ds Max and Maya: XSI to Maya Supported Features (http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/xsidocs/import_export_xwalk4maya_XSItoMayaSupportedSceneElementsandAttributes.htm) Maya to XSI Supported Features (http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/xsidocs/import_export_xwalk4maya_MayatoXSISupportedSceneElementsandAttributes.htm) XSI to Max Supported Features (http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/xsidocs/import_export_xwalk4max_XSIto3dsMaxSupportedSceneElementsandAttributes.htm) Max to XSI Supported Features (http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/xsidocs/import_export_xwalk4max_3dsMaxtoXSISupportedSceneElementsandAttributes.htm)