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On Windows, the plug-in is provided as a self-extracting installer. The plug-in is compatible with Windows XP and above and with Maya 2008 and above (both 32-bit and 64-bit). The installer will automatically detect which versions of Maya are present on the system and where they are located:
Custom Windows install
If you only want to extract the plug-in files without copying them to the Maya directories (e.g. for creating a package or some other form of customized deployment), you can change the autodetected path for the relevant Maya version to point to an empty directory (the directory must exist). You may want to uncheck "Uninstaller" in the Components page, since you probably don't need an uninstaller to be created in this case.
Keep in mind though that in order for Maxwell to work in batch render mode with the render.exe utility, the file maxwellRenderer.xml must be copied in the bin\rendererDesc subdirectory of the Maya install path. Maya does not look for renderer description files in standalone packages, so if you want to use that method of deployment you will need to make sure the XML file is copied separately to the correct path.
The install directory for a given Maya version is determined by looking at the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Maya\VERSION\Setup\InstallPath (64-bit or native 32-bit) or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Autodesk\Maya\VERSION\Setup\InstallPath (32-bit Maya on 64-bit Windows). These keys are set by the Maya installer. If you ever move Maya to a different directory after installing it, make sure you update the corresponding keys, or the Maxwell plug-in installer will be unable to find the new path.
Silent Windows install
The plug-in can be installed silently by passing the /S flag on the command line:
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In this mode, the installer will use the autodetected directories and will not ask any questions.
Mac OS X
On OS X, the plug-in is provided as a self-installing package. The minimum supported OS X version is 10.6 and the minimum supported Maya version is 2008. The platform requirements are the same as for Maya itself: 32-bit Intel for Maya 2008 - 2010, 32/64-bit Intel for Maya 2011, 64-bit Intel for Maya 2012 and above.
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The plug-in files are installed under /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/VERSION, except for maxwellRenderer.xml, which is copied in:
/Applications/Autodesk/mayaVERSION/Maya.app/Contents/bin/rendererDesc
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/Applications/Autodesk/mayaVERSION/Maya.app/Contents/MacOS/rendererDesc
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If you create customized deployments, make sure this file is copied explicitly to the correct locations, otherwise batch/command line rendering will not work with Maxwell.
Silent OSX install
To perform a silent installation you can use a command similar to this:
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