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MARUI - Plugin for Autodesk Maya

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MARUI - Plugin for Autodesk Maya
Information
Developer MARUI-PlugIn
Publisher MARUI-PlugIn
Platform SteamVR, Oculus Rift (Platform)
Device Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index
Operating System Windows
Type Software
Input Device Tracked Motion Controllers, Keyboard, Mouse
Website https://www.marui-plugin.com/
Infobox Updated October 13, 2026
Reviewed 13 October 2026. Authoring workflows, documented compatibility, selected version records and the scope and results of the cited 2019 studies. About review dates.

MARUI is a virtual reality authoring plug-in for Autodesk Maya, developed by MARUI-PlugIn. It displays a Maya scene in a headset and translates controller input into editing operations on that scene. The plug-in supports work such as modeling, rigging, animation and camera layout within Maya.[1][2]

Max Krichenbauer is the founder of MARUI-PlugIn. Its other products include BlenderXR, a VR interface for Blender, and VCAT, a virtual-camera plug-in. They are separate products from the Maya authoring plug-in.[3] MiVRy is the company's gesture-recognition library, which can also be used through MARUI.[4]

Features

MARUI edits the existing Maya scene directly. Objects do not need to be exported to a separate VR modeling application and imported back for these operations. The developer's store listing also describes access to Maya plug-ins and scripts through the VR interface.[1] MARUI 4's feature list describes collaboration between a VR operator and a user working with the desktop keyboard and mouse.[5]

Workflow Documented operations
Selection and transformation Select individual objects or a selection volume; move, rotate and scale with manipulators. The Omni tool combines those transformations, while QuickDrag manipulates objects without a preceding selection operation. Snapping includes Maya units, vertices, curves, polygon surfaces and joints.[6]
Polygon and curve modeling The documented interface includes component selection, extrude and other polygon operations, normal editing, NURBS curves and curve-editing tools.[7][2]
Rigging Create and orient joints, connect or disconnect them, mirror a skeleton and create inverse-kinematics handles. Smooth Bind Skin binds a mesh to a skeleton; Paint Skin Weights changes individual joints' influence on mesh vertices.[8]
Animation Play the animation, move between keyframes, set or delete keys and use ghosting. Auto-Keyframe requires an existing key on the object. The Animation Editor presents keyframe controls in a floating window; the Motion Path tool sketches movement through space and time.[9]
Camera layout The POV Camera tool creates a Maya camera from a frame drawn in VR. Its settings can constrain the aspect ratio, and the resulting camera remains available for Maya animation and rendering.[10]

Navigation and display

A headset user edits a wireframe car model with Maya panels visible.
MARUI demonstration combining the Maya model with the user's physical workspace.


Navigation changes the user's viewpoint and the scale at which the scene appears, without modifying the scene's geometry. The navigation manual describes grabbing the virtual space, joystick-style motion and Maya mouse-style orbiting. Two-controller navigation can change the display scale.[11] Version 4.1.1 subsequently introduced a teleportation mode.[12]

The Display menu can fit the whole scene or selected objects into view, align the scene's up direction and ground level with the physical environment, and set display scale from Maya's units. Viewpoints can be saved and reloaded, including orientation and scale. Shading options include textured, wireframe and solid views. The manual distinguishes looking through a selected camera in stereo from displaying its two-dimensional image with CamView.[13]

Editors and customization

A user holds tracked controllers beside a car body, chassis and wheel model.
A MARUI demonstration showing separate car components in the modeling workspace.


Maya panels such as the Outliner and Hypershade appear as floating windows. Their title bars reposition them, borders resize them and a zoom control changes their display size in VR. MARUI's window manager can arrange windows and save or load their positions.[14]

The scripting interface exposes headset and controller positions, orientations and transformation matrices. Command widgets bind MEL or Python commands to controller click or drag events, and timer widgets invoke commands at set intervals. The scripting manual cautions that MARUI waits for a command to finish, so slow callbacks can interrupt the VR interaction.[7]

Motion capture

MARUI's motion-capture interface attaches Maya objects to tracked devices and records their movement as keyframes. QuickAttach connects a selected object to a controller; the MoCap dialog also provides headset attachments, tracking pause and recording controls. Recording speed is relative to real time and respects Maya's frame-rate setting. Frame skipping reduces the number of recorded keys, leaving Maya to interpolate between them. Attachment setups can be saved and reloaded.[15]

System requirements

MARUI is a Windows plug-in running within Maya. The developer excludes Maya LT and describes headset connections through SteamVR or the Oculus PC environment, including a Quest connected to a PC through Oculus Link. This is a PC authoring configuration; the developer does not describe MARUI as software that runs independently on a standalone headset.[5]

Package or version Documented compatibility
Autodesk App Store package, version 4.1.5 Win64; the listing names Maya 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.[1]
MARUI 4 developer headset list Named examples include Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index. Quest use is described through a USB Oculus Link connection.[5]
Version 4.1.4 changes Added Quest-specific hand tracking, motion capture and passthrough functionality. The preceding 4.1.1 notes explicitly called its Quest passthrough support experimental.[12]
Version 4.1.5 changes Added Maya 2025 and Quest 3 support in the store history; the developer's support page describes improved Quest 3 support.[12][16]

These entries describe the named packages and release notes, rather than a test of every headset, Maya build or operating-system combination. The plug-in binary must match the installed Maya version; Maya 2016 and Maya 2016 Extension 2 use different files.[17]

Setup instructions

The developer's direct download supplies a .mll plug-in file, which can be placed in Maya's plug-in search path or located through the Plug-in Manager. The Autodesk App Store distribution uses an installer. In Maya, the documented loading path is Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-In Manager, where the appropriate MARUI file is loaded.[17][12]

Loading the plug-in creates a MARUI shelf tab. Its licensing button opens activation, and its MARUI icon opens the startup wizard. The wizard can start VR or the tutorial; the tutorial opens a new Maya scene, so existing work should be saved first. Closing the MARUI window stops the VR session. Unloading the plug-in is a separate operation through the shelf or Plug-in Manager.[17]

MARUI 4's published licensing options distinguish a trial, a non-commercial license and a professional license permitting commercial use. The developer describes the paid MARUI 4 licenses as perpetual and includes version 4.x updates. Earlier subscription versions have separate terms.[5]

Version history

In its May 13, 2017 account, IGDA Japan described MARUI 1.5.9 as the then-current version, with viewpoint saving, controller-button customization and gamma controls. The article identified Krichenbauer as the central developer of a company founded in 2016.[18]

Version Dated record Selected documented changes
4.0.0 April 8, 2020, developer history Added support for Maya file-browser and color-picker pop-up windows and improved Massless and Varjo support.[19]
4.0.7 April 2, 2021, developer history Added Maya 2022 support and extended motion-capture attachments to support up to eight Vive trackers.[19]
4.0.9 December 27, 2021, developer history Added multisample antialiasing and a resolution-multiplier setting for rendering above the headset's native resolution.[19]
4.1.0 February 1, 2022, developer history Expanded NURBS component selection and snapping; added Python command support in the shelf.[19]
4.1.1-4.1.5 Later App Store history Records teleportation, Maya 2023 support, subsequent motion-capture and Quest features, then Maya 2025 and Quest 3 support.[12]

The App Store dates its 4.1.5 listing update to May 13, 2024, while the developer's support page labels 4.1.5 January 1, 2025. These are the dates shown by the respective publication records.[1][16]

Usability research

Hawes, Teather, Arya and Krichenbauer's 2019 camera-layout study tested MARUI 3.0.5 with Maya 2018 and an HTC Vive Pro on a Windows 10 workstation with an Intel 8700K, GTX 1080 Ti and 48 GB RAM. Sixteen paid participants were split into eight with at least one year using Maya or similar software and eight with less than one day of Maya experience. After 15 minutes of training, they framed a shot in a 12-second animated scene, with a five-minute task limit. Two professional directors judged proficiency.[20]

Group differences were not statistically significant for completion time (p = 0.78) or proficiency (p = 0.37). Participants encountered camera-selection, settings and controller-button problems. The small study compared experience groups using VR, without a desktop task condition; it does not establish equal performance in general or a universal productivity improvement.[20]

The MARUI 4 promotional page also links animation speed figures to Cannavò and colleagues' 2019 paper Immersive Virtual Reality-Based Interfaces for Character Animation.[5] That paper tested a separate VR Blender add-on with 23 volunteers, comparing its VR interface with Blender's native interface for rigging, skinning, posing and a complete animation pipeline. Its measurements apply to that tool and those experimental tasks, rather than measuring MARUI performance.[21]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "MARUI 4 - VR/AR UI". Autodesk App Store. https://apps.autodesk.com/MAYA/en/Detail/Index?appLang=en&id=255374816266072651&os=Win64. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Documentation". MARUI-PlugIn. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  3. ↑ "Press Kit". MARUI-PlugIn. https://www.marui-plugin.com/press-kit/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  4. ↑ "MARUI-PlugIn - VR Plug-in for Autodesk Maya". MARUI-PlugIn. https://www.marui-plugin.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "MARUI 4". MARUI-PlugIn. https://www.marui-plugin.com/marui4/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  6. ↑ "The "Tool" Menu". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-tool-menu/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Documentation: Scripting". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-scripting/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  8. ↑ "Documentation: The Rigging Menu". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-rigging-menu/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  9. ↑ "Documentation: The Animation Menu". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-animation-menu/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  10. ↑ "Documentation: The POV Camera Tool". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-pov-camera-tool/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  11. ↑ "Documentation: Navigation in VR". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-navigation-in-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 "MARUI 4 - VR/AR UI: Help Document". Autodesk App Store. https://apps.autodesk.com/MAYA/en/Detail/HelpDoc?appId=255374816266072651&appLang=en&os=Win64. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  13. ↑ "Documentation: The "Display" Menu". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-display-menu/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  14. ↑ "Documentation: Using Maya Windows & Editors in VR". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-floating-windows/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  15. ↑ "Documentation: Motion Capture (Puppeteering)". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-mocap/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Support". MARUI-PlugIn. https://www.marui-plugin.com/support/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 "Documentation: Installing, Activating, and Starting MARUI". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-installing-activating-starting/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  18. ↑ "IGDAスカラーがVR空間内で3DCG制作を行うためのプラグインを開発・販売". IGDA Japan. 2017-05-13. https://www.igda.jp/2017/05/13/6692/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 "MARUI-PlugIn Version History". MARUI-PlugIn documentation. https://www.marui-plugin.com/documentation-versionhistory/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Daniel Hawes; Rob Teather; Ali Arya; Max Krichenbauer (2019). "Assessing the Value of 3D Software Experience with Camera Layout in Virtual Reality". 2019 IEEE International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality. https://www.csit.carleton.ca/~rteather/pdfs/AIVR_2019.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  21. ↑ Alberto Cannavò; Claudio Demartini; Lia Morra; Fabrizio Lamberti (2019). "Immersive Virtual Reality-Based Interfaces for Character Animation". IEEE Access 7: 125463-125480. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2939427. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
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