What's New in LookdevX for Maya (What's New in Maya 2026)

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 as the Default Material

• 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 Updated

• 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.

Generative Textures API

• 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 Updated to v24.11

USD in LookdevX has been updated to v24.11.