Substance Plug-in not working in Maya 2018.4

[cdterfy]

I believe my problem is the same as described here: https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php/topic,23427.0.html

I performed a clean Maya install, and manually added the plug-in for Substance. I also had to manually change the "Maya.env" file to point to the folders where the plug-in is saved on my computer. It loads the plug-in properly (I can verify that through the plug-in manager in maya showing the correct directory, as well as the "substance" tab on the toolbar in maya) but something is wrong and I'm unable to use it. When I go to create the material, I browse and select my .sbsar file but when I try and "refresh" the node by clicking off of it and back on (as described in the "Substance in Maya" video from the Allegorithmic Youtube channel, at about 5:02), mine doesn't update. The "substance file" line remains blank, but when I click "reload" the file shows up in the bar - the texture sample remains black. If I click "create shader network" it says that no substance node could be automagically connected.

The command line shows an error when I do this,  saying:
# Error: file: A:/MAYA/MAYA SUBSTANCE PLUGIN/plug-ins/substance/scripts/AEsubstanceTemplate.mel line 1898: ImportError: file <maya console> line 1: cannot import name UpdateGUI_TextureSettings_Workflow #

The "A:/Maya/etc." directory is where I installed the plugin, so the bin, icon, plug-ins, and scripts folders are there. I thought it was strange to edit the Maya.env file to point to Icons, plugins, and scripts, but not to bin - but I was following the Autodesk plugins guide and it didn't say anything about the bin folder or what to do with the .dll files inside it.

This is the link to Autodesk's guide for installing plugins: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-FA51BD26-86F3-4F41-9486-2C3CF52B9E17-htm.html

I don't know anything about code so the error is over my head, but I've asked a friend and looked online at other errors and my only guess is that a file is missing, not in the correct directory, or not being called by the plug-in properly - but I'm just guessing.

[Galen Helfter]

Hi @cdterfy ,

If it's having trouble loading, there's a substance.mod file in the modules folder in the base Maya install directory that may need to be changed. This file is what tells Maya and the plug-in where to load the proper scripts and libraries, which are in the bin folder. You may try to hardcode your new location for the plugin into that file in the win64 platform entry.

The bin folder definitely needs to be in the path somehow, either through messing with the substance.mod file or by manually adding it somewhere, as Windows has no concept of relative pathing.

Best,

Galen Helfter

[gpmail1]

Can you tell us how to do that?  I'm not a coding noob, but I sure am to substance.mod files.

[Galen Helfter]

I attached the new module file that is like the one shipped with version 1.4.0 in 2019, and what will be shipped in 1.4.1 very soon.

There's a filepath in it that tells Maya where to load it.

I had to do some work last November on extracting the plugin outside of Maya, so we actually set it up so that the plugin installs outside of the Maya directory by default. It may not work with previous versions of the plugin, but when 1.4.1 is released for 2018 soon, it will be easy to place the plugin wherever and modify that file.

[annabeck]

So I am a coding noob. I've installed Maya 2019 and the Substance plugin. Where should I put the substance plugin folder so that Maya will load it? And do I need to change any of the coding in the files? This is the error I am getting right now:

Warning: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2019/scripts/others/pluginWin.mel line 910: Could not load C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2019/plug-ins/SubstanceMaya/2019/plug-ins/Substance.mll as a plug-in //

[Galen Helfter]

Hi,

If you just install the plugin using the installer, it should install to C:\Allegorithmic\SubstanceMaya\2019 and then you don't need to do anything on top of that.

If you install into the plugins folder, you'll need to edit the module file so that maya will load it. The module file that we ship has to have a directory set, so it's expecting to load it from the default location.

The module file installs to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Modules\Maya\2019 for Maya 2019, and is called substance.mod.

There's an entry in the file that looks like this:

+ PLATFORM:win64 substance 1.4.1-7b007d3 C:\Allegorithmic\SubstanceMaya\2019
PATH +:= bin
SUBSTANCE_PLUG_IN_PATH:=bin
SUBSTANCES_LOCATION:=substances

You can edit the folder in that entry to point to wherever you have the plugin, then it will appear in the Maya plugin manager.