Maya 2026 build request

[digicpictures]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
There are only release builds for the latest point release of Maya 2026.2. But for productions started with the original 2026 release these plugins are not binary compatible, so the production is stuck with the older, buggier version of the maya-usd plugin. On the other hand for example Bifrost and Golaem is compiled for Maya 2026 and is usable for both 2026 and 2026.2. It does not make much sense that only the USD plugin update is unusable out of the box.

Describe the solution you'd like
I'd like to have builds for the original Maya 2026 release version.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Compiling my own build can be done, but compiling USD and all its dependencies is a major PITA. And having compatibility with the ADSK build matrix can be tricky, and the differences further complicates error reporting.

Additional context

[wallworm]

Thanks for bringing this up. We have discussed this many times internally. One of the main issues for us is that we are heavily tied to UFE and that is also tied to Maya versions. Quite often a fix for Maya USD requires changes in UFE which also requires changes in Maya. I'm not sure we can change this in the near term. In the meantime, we are discussing ways provide better information or paths on recompiling the plugin with less friction.

[seando-adsk]

Below you will find some information that should help you build MayaUsd from source.

You will need to download the Maya devkit associated with the version you want to build with.

For USD, you don't need to build it if you already have a MayaUsd installed for that Maya version. As part of the MayaUsd install we include the full USD (including headers and libs) necessary to build MayaUsd with. You just need to extract the USD devkit.zip. If you look into the folder:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\MayaUSD\Mayaxxx\xxx\mayausd\USD
you should see a file devkit.zip which you need to extract.

Then clone the MayaUsd github repo and run the build.py with these flags, adjusting the variables as per your downloaded locations:

python build.py --maya-location ${MAYA_LOCATION} --pxrusd-location ${USD_LOCATION} --devkit-location ${DEVKIT_LOCATION} --build-args="-DPYTHON_INCLUDE_DIR=${MAYA_LOCATION}/include/Python311/Python,-DPython_EXECUTABLE=${MAYA_LOCATION}/bin/mayapy.exe,-DPYTHON_LIBRARIES={$MAYA_LOCATION}/lib/python311.lib,-DBUILD_WITH_PYTHON_3=ON,-DBUILD_WITH_PYTHON_3_VERSION=3.11,-DPython3_VERSION=3.11.4" <your_build_workspace>

Note: for this command I've added some extra python build args as its always best to build with the Python from Maya to make sure there are no conflicts when building the python bindings.

Sean