Maya UI scaling for Hi Resolution Monitors

[Anonymous]

Compared to other software such as Blender and Photoshop, Maya still needs to improve on it's scaling for high-resolution monitors. The UI is way too small and manual adjustment goes up to only 200% which yields the same result as not adjusting it at all. I propose a UI scaling up to 300%+. Or a better scaling algorithm.

- Thank-you

[Anonymous]

This. 4k on a 15" laptop is unusable.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

I was about to buy a new monitor but this really sucks

[tj.galda]

We support the device scaling from Windows for example up to 200%.  How big are you looking for?  I tried just now testing at 300% and the rest of my apps become unusable on my desktop (way too big) PC.

Genuinely curious to know how big?  

Note, this could cause a number of QA issues so the likelihood of us doing this is lower than some other ideas.

[g2m.agent]

@tj.galda One of the problems with maya interfaces is that Low Space Utilization. scale the UI will increases this issue.

Maya must redesign the UI elements, especially the input field. see Blender!

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-ideas/ablity-to-adjust-ui-font-size-independently-like-blender/i...

[tj.galda]

Can you try editing this script to see if the 175 value works for you?

C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2019/scripts/startup/createPrefWndUI.mel

If you go to line 1683 & add a new menuItem (or several) at the different values you're interested in & try it that'd be great.  

Once you've added that, you'll have to restart Maya & chose them in your preferences, then restart a second time.  A bit of a hassle for sure.

Alternatively you can just run these two lines to set the optionVar to see what works, but doing it this way won't let you be able to open your preference window due to an error saying you've picked a value we don't support.  Anyway, first go in your preferences & pick custom & pick whatever you want, like 150%.  Then run these two lines in your script editor to try a different value.  So if you wanted to try 175% you would put:

float $scale = 1.75;
optionVar -fv interfaceScalingValue $scale;

Then restart Maya & you will be at the new value in a hacky way.

Anyway, let us know what values make sense & we can work out the best way to support this quickly.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

awesome, is the 2020 update coming this year ?

[tj.galda]

🙂

We can't talk dates but I can tell you we're having this cool live stream next week.  

https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/mande-events/maya-web-event

[cct31d16]

I have been trying unsuccessfully to increase the UI font size in Maya 2018. It is way too small. Custom scaling up in Preferences didn't seem to do anything. I tried a follow a video someone posted in YouTube with Maya 2014, changing the Tahoma strings up to 16 or 14 in the Program files, but the 2018 version didn't seem to have them. If anyone has successfully changed the font size, my eyesight would be very, very grateful. This is such a basic need I'm surprised Autodesk hasn't come up with an adjustable font size option.

[Anonymous]

hello ! I have  a strange issue . I wanted to scale MAYA  interface ,  so I  went to preferences/interface/interface scaling /use custom scaling and I  set it to 200%. That was fine for me . BUT when I did  that I couldn't  click anything from the toolbox, shelves and icons . it is  like  a photo that does nothing when u click on it .  I  could only enter the basic menu (file, edit, create , select . ) .  When i understood that the scale change caused the problem , I put it back to  ''scale  interface using system setting'' and I  was able again to use the toolbox icons . but the interface is still small and I have to change it cause I  really can see anything . I updated my drivers and my windows . I have the latest MAYA  2020.2 version... and I  have a GeForce RTX2070.  Maybe can someone help? .

[dannymcgeeGZEGA]

@tj.galda Sorry for resurrecting this thread — I'm trying Maya for the first time (Maya LT actually, if it makes a difference), and I'm struggling with the UI scaling. I tried your suggestion of modifying `createPrefWndUI` to add extra menu options, but those extra options don't seem to be actually doing anything. I'm seeing them in the preferences window, but I'm not actually seeing any difference in the UI scale at my custom values — 150%, 167%, 175%, 183% all look the same, and then there's a noticeable jump when I hit 200%.

For what it's worth, I'm using a 27" 4k display, and I use 175% scaling in Windows, which gives me an optical match for my 2nd and 3rd displays, both 24" 1080p. In Maya, 150% is small enough that I have to lean forward and squint at the screen, but 200% is large enough that my main viewport feels dwarfed by the UI. I have a feeling I'm going to have to end up settling for the latter, but it's pretty unfortunate. Blender handles this perfectly out-of-the-box, and I can even move the window onto either of my other displays and it seamlessly rescales to match the correct DPI.

[_eli_guerron]

@tj.galda your solution does not work for 2022

got any other solutions?

[omar_ahmed_vc]

Sadly, not fix , even at 2023, I've two monitors, one ultra wide 2k and other one is 4k

I've to work on max 200% otherwise, the UI on my 4K is so freaking tiny.

Why there is no way to customize the UI scaling per screen for maya?

[asilva15]

Jiminy Cricket it's 2022. The UI is maybe 6pt on my 4k laptop with scaling all the way up. Every time I use an AutoDesk product I'm absolutely gobsmacked by some of the simplest usability issues I encounter. It's not like you don't release new versions... the product management culture must just be entirely broken.

[olgafrolova4b]

Hello, 

Can you please take a new screenshot (full size please) 200% Windows scaling, default settings?

Thanks!

[bgross23E5T5X]

I just want to chime in on this decade old topic and say it's still an issue :(. I'm on a 4k laptop - my system scaling is set to 225% because it's a large screen and I like things a bit bigger. Maya only going up to 200%, in combination with it's small base font size, makes this software less usable.

My calculations show Mayas main menu base font size (no scaling) is 11px. On my 4k setup at 200% Maya UI scaling, the base font size goes down to 10px. This is 3-4px below google search body text size (14px), and I think it's widely regarded that even that size is small. 

Comparing Maya to other design apps (PS and Figma), it's menu font size is about 20% smaller.

This might not seem that important, but that 20% is the difference between usable and frustrating, even for someone with "normal" vision like me. I can't imagine trying to use Maya at 4k with any vision issues. I know it's hard to balance such a dense UI, but I know so many people out there would find your product so much easier to use with another 2 or to 4 UI scaling levels (say 225%, 250%, 275%, 300%).

If any of the powers that be see this and consider it, thank you a bunch.