labs: MayaMaya

mayamaya dock

Working with multiple iterations of Maya open is a great way to save time, it allows you to copy and paste individual objects/nodes from scene to scene, just like many pro apps out there. No one has done it better than Apple with Logic Pro 9, making running multiple iterations unnecessary as they have added a fantastic method of importing whatever data you like without importing entire projects (although this is still possible with Logic) :

Selective Track-Import

If you want to have this same type of functionality with Maya on OS X, you can’t just fire open another instance of the app like you can on other platforms by just launching the app again, but luckily it is very easy to do. One method is popping open Terminal and telling Maya what to do:

open -n /Applications/Autodesk/maya2009/Maya.app

This is something you want to do quickly though, so a one click solution is a must, and that is the point of MayaMaya:

Download: MayaMaya_v1.1.1 (778KB .zip)

Log:
[2011.08.23 – v1.1.1] Updated to be universal for all Maya versions, choose Maya location on startup.
[2010.11.12 – v1.1] Added drag and drop functionality to automatically open specific projects
[2010.04.10 – v1.0] Updated for Maya 2010, 2011
[2010.03.03 – v1.0] Released MayaMaya 2009

MayaMaya_v1.1 now supports drag and drop! You can either launch the application normally and choose how many instances you would like to open, or you can drop project files on the app to automatically open them in different instances of Maya. This version also includes preferences, if you would like to reset the preferences, delete the “com.andorulabs.MayaMaya*” file located in your “/User/Library/Preferences” directory.

An app to pop in your dock, or Finder toolbar, or wherever is most convenient so you can easily open as many instances as your system can handle.

NOTE: The download package includes versions for Maya 2009, 2010, and 2011.

One annoyance you can run into is the “Pasted__” prefix that will be added to all pasted files. This can easily be taken care of using a simple .mel script that Alex Villabon does a great job outlining on his site Green Soda.