Python extension libraries

Autodesk 3ds Max ships with a pre-built version of PySide 2.1, and is the preferred library for using QT with Python in 3ds Max. You may install other CPython extension libraries as well. However, while every effort has been made to ensure that CPython extension libraries such as PyQt, SciPy, NumPy, PIL, and so forth work with Python in 3ds Max, Autodesk does not provide technical support for them.

If you do want to use a CPython extension library such as PyQt, you must have the 64-bit binaries compiled using the same versions of Qt and Python that are used by 3ds Max 2015. These are Qt 4.8.5 and Python 2.7.3. Compiled extension libraries must then be placed at a location that can be found by Python. Python uses the list of directories in the sys.path global variable to find the location of imported Python scripts and extension modules.

NOTE:Python 2.7.3 is compiled with VC9.0, while 3ds Max 2015 is compiled with VC11.0. This means that you may need to recompile CPython extension libraries for use with Python in 3ds Max with the more recent compiler.
IMPORTANT:When installing the binary package, if you are installing from a .msi, you must run the .msi as an administrator.

Topics in this section

Please send us your comment about this page

Creative Commons License Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see the Autodesk Creative Commons FAQ for more information.