a New Distribution Channel for Maya & 3ds Max

With the release of Maya 2014 and 3ds Max 2014 the Autodesk Exchange site makes it easier for plug-in, content, and tutorial developers to distribute and sell their content more easily to Autodesk customers.

This is a new channel to make new customers and does not necessarily means that you have to switch from your existing distribution channel to this one entirely. You should really see that as a new oportunity for you and your future customers to work together.

But behind the scene 3ds Max and Maya have both been mofidifed to support the Exchange Store for a better customer experience. So now, if you familiar with Mac OSX and the bundle approach, 3ds Max and Maya both have a modular bundle system in place to support plug-in application. A module (or bundle) is a self-contained directory which contains all the application files. 3ds Max and Maya (as well as other Autodesk applications) will watch these bundles and load them depending of what they are. In the next post, I'll go in details how to configure such system. Not only that was developed for Exchange, but 3rd party developers can take advantage of that system to install their application versus copying files in 3ds Max and Maya root directories. At the end, the ADN team developed some simple scripts and template for you to create installers in a very simple way. Curious? take a look to the 'Maya Bonus Tools' or 'Bulge-O-Matic from Di-O-Matic, Inc.' apps or read the next post for more details.

The Autodesk Exchange pages can be found at:

3ds Max - http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-exchange
Maya - http://www.autodesk.com/maya-exchange

Both Maya and 3ds Max have direct links to the exchange app store from within the product under the help menu. In Maya go to "Help > Exchange Apps" in the main menu. In 3ds Max go to "Help > Autodesk Product Information > Exchange Apps".

According to the Autodesk Exchange developer center "apps" aren't restricted to plug-ins, and can be anything a customer will find useful. For example:

Plug-ins
Standalone applications
Training tutorials
E-books
Content

Note that at the current time there is no cost to sign-up and Autodesk is currently taking no commission, but may do so in the future. For more information on that see the Publisher FAQ.

You feel it is too complicated, or the information given on the FAQ and/or WEB page confusing? Contact the Exchange Store team, there is always solutions to a problem.

If you have enough information and want to get started publishing your content for 3ds Max or Maya, you can go directly the following links:

Happy content publishing!