Speed Up Maya Load Time (Patreon)

Maya comes with many default plugins and loads them all every time you launch Maya. There's an official list of what each plugin does here, but it's missing descriptions for quite a few.

You can speed up Maya's load time by 50% or more by disabling many of these, but which ones do you really need and what do they all do? Find out below!

I'll also provide my recommendations to enable or disable each one, based on common, modern workflows and tasks. Many of these plugins are legacy tools that aren't relevant any more.

AbcBullet.mll

Used for caching Maya Bullet sims to Alembic. Disable.

AbcExport.mllAbcImport.mll

Allows reading and writing of Alembic files. Enable.

animImportExport.mll

"Lets you import or export anim curves to the API clipboard." Disable.

ArubaTessellator.mll

"Lets you tessellate NURBS in Viewport 2.0." Disable.

atomImportExport.mll

"Lets you import and export animation using the ATOM (Animation Transfer Object Model) file format." Disable.

AutodeskPacketFile.mll

"Allows Maya to recognize the Autodesk Packet File (.apf) file extension." Disable.

autoLoader.mll

There's not much info available about this one, but it seems to have something to do with downloading updates from a server. Disable.

blast2Cmd.mll

Again, little info to be found. Might be some sort of API for playblasts. Disable.

bluePencil.mll

Enables the new Blue Pencil tool. It's very lightweight so if you use it, go ahead, it's not going to affect load time. Disable.

bullet.mll

"Lets you use MayaBullet's physics engine for dynamic simulations." Might as well keep this active for the occasional basic simulation tasks, but it's definitely not required. Enable.

cacheEvaluator.mll

Related to playback caching in the viewport. Enable.

cgfxShader.mll

"Lets you create hardware shaders." Disable.

cleanPerFaceAssignment.mll

Performs actions "if multiple connections to one material are found." Not sure what scenarios this comes into play, but it's lightweight so no harm in leaving it on. Enable.

clearcoat.mll

"Lets you apply fresnel reflections to shaders." Disable.

convertToComponentTags. py

Enables the convertToComponentTags Python command. If this is something you use, leave it on, but it's definitely optional. Enable.

curveWarp.mll

Adds Curve Warp to the Deform menu. Enable.

ddsFloatReader.mll

Allows reading of .dds images. Disable.

deformerEvaluator.mll

"Used to accelerate deformations on the GPU."  Enable.

dgProfiler.mll

Enables the DG Profiler tool for creating and exporting profiles of the Dependency Graph. Disable.

drawUfe.mll

This one's not clear, but I think it has to do with the ADSK Universal Front End (UFE), a "middleware component that coordinates translation between your Digital Content Creation (DCC) application (e.g.: Maya, 3dsMax) and multiple other data models." Disable.

dx11Shader.mll

"Lets you display your own HLSL shaders in Maya." Disable.

fltTranslator.mll

"Enables file compatibility with OpenFlight." Disable.

freeze.mll

Enables the freeze command. "When a node is frozen none of its inputs will be requested when they change, the node will use the inputs that existed at the time of freezing until the node is unfrozen." Enable.

Fur.mll

"Enables the Fur menu in the Rendering menu set." Disable.

gameFbxExporter.mll

"Enables the Game Exporter tool." Disable.

gameInputDevice.mll

Allows the use of game controllers.  Disable.

GamePipeline.mll

"Lets you enable and disable File menu options for importing and exporting work to a Unity project or an Unreal project." Disable.

gameVertexCount.mll

"Displays real-time game engine vertex counts." Disable.

geometryReport. py

Another unclear one. The included Python script has some sample code which fails to run, so I'd say this plugin isn't needed. Disable.

geometrytools.mll

This one is a total mystery. It's lightweight, so might as well leave it on. Enable.

glslShader.mll

"Lets you use the GLSL Shader material." Disable.

GPUBuiltInDeformer.mll

More support for running deformers on the GPU. Enable.

gpuCache.mll

"Lets you import and export Maya objects and animations to a GPU-optimized Alembic cache file." Enable.

hairPhyicalShader.mll

Useful for displaying nice hair/fur previews in Viewport 2.0. Enable.

Iges.mll

Enable support for .iges files. Disable.

ik2Bsolver.mllikSpringSolver.mll

Enables two IK solvers for rigging. Enable.

lookdevKit.mll

Enables a bunch of utility nodes like simplex noise, color correct and more. Enable.

matrixNodes.mll

"Enables matrix utility nodes that convert and operate on transformation matrices." Enable.

mayaCharacterization.mll

"Enables the functionality of the Definition tab in the HumanIK window." Enable.

mayaHIK.mll

"Enables the core functionality of HumanIK in the HumanIK window." Enable.

MayaMuscle.mll

"Enables the Maya Muscle plug-in and loads the Muscle menu in all menu sets." Enable.

melProfiler.mll

"Lets you open the MEL Profiler. This profiling system monitors tool usage and records the metrics needed to identify bottlenecks." Disable.

meshReorder.mll

Unknown. It's lightweight, so no harm in leaving it on. Enable.

modelingToolkit.mll

Enables the very important Maya Modeling Toolkit. Enable.

nearestPointOnMesh.mll

"Lets you access the closestPointOnMesh node." Enable.

objExport.mll

"Allows Maya to export scenes to the Object (.obj) file extension." Enable.

OneClick.mll

"Lets you send information between Maya and 3ds Max, Softimage, MotionBuilder, and Mudbox." Disable.

OpenEXRLoader.mll

"Enables file compatibility with OpenEXR." Enable.

polyBoolean.mll

Enables boolean operations on meshes. Enable.

quatNodes.mll

"Enables quaternion utility nodes." Enable.

randomizerDevice.mll

Lets you create a node that allows for randomizing other node parameters. Enable.

renderSetup. py

Enables a bunch of Python commands related to rendering. Enable.

retargeterNodes.mll

"Lets you retarget HumanIK animation to and from custom Maya rigs (non-HumanIK rigs)." Enable.

rotateHelper.mll

"Lets you access the rotateHelper node." Enable.

sceneAssembly.mll

"Lets you use Scene Assembly nodes and representations in your Maya workflows." I don't know if this is used much (or at all) these days, but might as well leave it on. Enable.

shaderFXPlugin.mll

"ShaderFX is a real-time shader editor that lets you create advanced viewport shaders by connecting different shading nodes." Disable.

shotCamera.mll

Another total mystery! Enable.

snapTransform. py

Enables the snapTransform Python command. Enable.

stage. py

Enables a bunch of Python commands related to stage manipulation. Enable.

stereoCamera.mll

"Lets you use the stereoscopic camera type." Disable.

stlTranslator.mll

"Lets you import/export STL files." Disable.

studioImport.mll

"Lets you import Alias Studio wire files." Disable.

svgFileTranslator. py

Enables support for .svg files. Enable.

testify. py

Enables the Python testify command. Enable.

tiffFloatReader.mll

"Reads IEEE 32-bit floating point .tif images." Enable.

timeSliderBookmark.mll

Adds support for bookmarks on the Time Slider. Enable.

Turtle.mll

"Turtle is a sophisticated baking plug-in used for lighting and content creation in game development." Disable.

Type.mll

"Enables the Type and SVG tools." Enable.

udpDevice.mll

"A simple client device node that uses UDP to transfer data." Disable.

ufeSupport. py

Adds Python support for the ADSK Universal Front End (UFE). Disable.

Unfold3D.mll

"Enables Unfold3D, which is a faster, more reliable alternative to the legacy [UV] unfold algorithm." Enable.

VectorRender.mll

"Enables Maya’s Vector renderer." Disable.

ATFPlugin.mll

Enables support for Autodesk Translation Format, a "file translation system to simplify data exchange of both Autodesk and 3rd-party file formats." Disable.

bifmeshio.mllbifrostGraph.mllbifrostshellnode.mllbirostvisplugin.mllBoss.mll

These are all related to Bifrost. Disable.

I like to use BF every once in a while, but the plugins are VERY slow to load. I prefer to disable auto load and instead load them manually as needed. You can do that by running the following Python command:

cmds.loadPlugin('bifrostGraph.mll', 'bifmeshio.mll', 'bifrostshellnode.mll', 'bifrostvisplugin.mll', 'Boss.mll')

LookdevXMaya.mll

Maya 2024 only. Enables the experimental LookdevX platform which, while cool, barely works at the moment. Disable.

MASH.mll

Enables the MASH procedural effects toolkit. Enable.

mayaHydra.mll

Enables support for USD Hydra render delegates in Viewport 2.0. Somewhat feature-limited at the moment. Disable.

mayaUsdPlugin.mll

Adds full support for USD. Enable.

fbmaya.mll

Adds support for the .fbx file format. Enable.

invertShape.mllposeInterpolator.mll

Some more rigging tools. Enable.

sweep.mll

Enables the Sweep tool. Enable.

MayaVnnPlugin.mll

Needed for the Bifrost graph. Enable.

xgenToolkit.mll

Loads the XGen and Interactive Groom toolsets. Enable.

xgSplineDataToXpd.mll

Not useful unless you need to export XGen splines to an .xpd cache file. Disable.