Working in Viewport 2.0

Select Renderer > Viewport 2.0 > to open the Hardware Renderer 2.0 Settings window. See Viewport 2.0 options for more information.

Running Viewport 2.0

Viewport 2.0 is the default renderer in your Maya workspace.

To switch to the other renderers, you can select the Legacy Default Viewport or Legacy High Quality Viewport options from the Renderer panel menu.

Enable Display > Heads Up Display > Viewport Renderer to see Viewport 2.0 in the workspace heads up display.

Note: Use of remote desktop to run Viewport 2.0 is not supported.

Setting the default renderer for your workspace

You can set a default viewport renderer for your workspace. Choose between the Legacy Default Viewport and Viewport 2.0.

To do so, in the Preferences window, Display category, set your Default viewport under the Viewport 2.0 section.

OpenGL, DirectX 11, and OpenGL Core Profile

You have a choice of four rendering engines in Viewport 2.0: OpenGL - Legacy, DirectX 11, OpenGL- Core Profile (Compatibility) and OpenGL - Core Profile (Strict).

Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences to open the Preferences window. Then select the Display category and then your Rendering engine under the Viewport 2.0 section.

Selecting DirectX 11 as your rendering engine lets you render DX11 hardware shaders in real-time in the viewport. See Run Viewport 2.0 in DirectX 11 mode for more information.

Selecting OpenGL- Core Profile (Compatibility) or OpenGL - Core Profile (Strict) as your rendering engine lets you create custom GLSL (OpenGL Shading Language) shaders which support lighting, textures, shadows, and tessellation. See Run Viewport 2.0 in Core Profile mode.

See also Rendering engine (in the Viewport 2.0 Options) for more information.

API support

Use the Maya API to create plug-ins to draw, shade and create various effects in Viewport 2.0. The Maya Developer Help Viewport 2.0 API section provides information on the classes and methods available for use with Viewport 2.0, as well as information on how to update your plug-in from using the legacy viewport API to using the Viewport 2.0 API.

Optimizing Viewport 2.0

For tips on how to optimize performance for Viewport 2.0, see Optimizing Viewport 2.0.

Troubleshoot Viewport 2.0

For tips on troubleshooting Viewport 2.0, see Troubleshoot Viewport 2.0.