Getting started with .NET API

The Maya .NET API is a system that allows developers to create plug-ins and extensions for Maya using Microsoft’s .NET technology. It includes the following features:

The Maya .NET API is similar to the Maya Python API in that it is generated from the Maya C++ API. Most classes in the .NET API have a corresponding class in the C++ API with the same name and with a similar interface (that is, a set of functions and classes).

C# classes are proxies for C++ classes.

The system provides the following advantages:

Requirements

The .NET SDK is installed with Maya as of Extension 2 for Maya 2013. The .NET bindings do not work with any other version of Maya (including Maya 2013).

The Maya .NET API uses the .NET 4.5 Framework and is compatible with .NET 4.0 Framework.

It is recommended that you use .NET Framework 4.5 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 to compile the examples. However, you can still use .NET Framework 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010 to create a solution and compile the examples.

NOTE:In this chapter, the path prefix <...> denotes your Maya install directory.

.NET SDK Files

The Maya .NET SDK constitutes the following files:

Visual Studio integrated documentation

In addition to using the Maya API C++ reference documentation, the Maya .NET API ships with Visual Studio integrated documentation generated from the C++ reference documentation. This enables:

NOTE:You can also obtain a .chm of the .NET reference documentation at http://www.autodesk.com/me-sdk-docs.