What's New in LookdevX for Maya

LookdevX 1.7.0 for Maya introduces improved publishing workflows, relative paths support, and a new generative textures API.

Improved Publishing Workflows

Publishing Settings: A new settings panel adds controls for how MaterialX compounds can be published in LookdevX.
Global Paths: Compounds saved to a disk can now be loaded from path locations set manually or through an environment variable. Multiple global paths can be set up at the same time. These paths are displayed in the LookdevX section of the Maya Preferences window.
Make Editable: Instances of compounds in the graph can now be made editable.

OpenPBR is the new default material in Maya 2026.
OpenPBR offers an expressive and intuitive set of controls capable of accurately modeling the majority of CG materials, together with increased interoperability, including compatibility with MaterialX and OpenUSD. For detailed information about its usage and settings, see OpenPBR Surface in the Arnold User Guide.

MaterialX has been updated to 1.38.10. This includes an OpenPBR shader that was backported from 1.39 to allow creating and editing OpenPBR Surface materials in LookdevX. The USD exporter is also able to export OpenPBR materials to the MaterialX implementation.
Relative paths are now supported when exporting MaterialX documents through the MaterialX export dialog. The path is relative to the location of the MaterialX document.

A new generative textures API makes it easy to integrate your generative AI service of choice into LookdevX by creating a C++ or Python plug-in.
The plug-in appears as a compound node in the "Experimental" section of the node library, which encapsulates the texture nodes generated by the service.
An overview and instructions on how to get started are included in the LookdevX installation.

USD in LookdevX has been updated to v24.11.

See LookdevX for Maya 1.7.0 Release Notes for the full list of new features, improvements, and bug fixes.

To learn about LookdevX for Maya, watch the tutorials on Maya Learning Channel.

To get familiar with the workflow, see Getting Started with LookdevX.

To get involved with LookdevX development, visit the official Autodesk beta community.