Maya’s standalone interpreter can be useful for both development and batch processing, as an alternative to maya -batch. To use maya functions in an external python interpreter, maya provides a handy executable called mayapy. You can find it in the maya bin directory. PyMEL ensures that using python outside of Maya is as close as possible to python inside Maya. When PyMEL detects that it is being imported in a standalone interpreter it performs these operations:
- initializes maya.standalone
- parses your Maya.env and adds variables to your environment
- sources Autodesk’s initialization MEL scripts
- sources user preferences
- sources userSetup.mel
Because of these improvements, working in this standalone environment is nearly identical to working in interactive mode, except of course you can’t create windows. However, there are two caveats that you must be aware of.
- scriptJobs do not work: use callbacks derived from api.MMessage instead
- maya.cmds does not work inside userSetup.py (and thus any function in PyMEL that relies on maya.cmds)
The second one might seem a little tricky, but we’ve already come up with the solution: a utility function called pymel.mayahook.executeDeferred. Jump to the docs for the function for more information on how to use it.
In order to use mayapy you must first properly setup your system environment.