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Splash screen: hide only after maya is fully started

Splash screen: hide only after maya is fully started

Would be really nice if the Maya splash screen doesn't disappear until Maya has actually finished loading all plugins. Now you are "tricked" and think that Maya is done loading, while it's often far from the truth.

26 Comments
DomeAlessi
Participant

This should also include the loading of plugins and scripts that might kick-in after the main Maya module has finished loading (avoiding to have multiple the annoying multiple stolen focus).

ajoss13
Participant

Not just splash screen, but Maya should start any operations just after everything was loaded.
All the plug-ins, all scripts, all deferred commands were executed.
Because right now Maya starting to load scene while not even all plug-ins used by this scene were loaded, and there's no way to prevent that.

 

API/scripting support for this is a must.

alexis_p
Contributor

Or this could be an Env variable (like MAYA_DISABLE_CER) you can set to force "Freeze until all is loaded" ?

 

something like MAYA_STARTUP_NO_DEFERRED_LOADING=1

lucericr
Autodesk

As far as I recall, it's better for the splash screen needs to be dismissed rather early, because there are cases when an error message box that gets stuck behind it because the app could not detect it and dimiss the splashscreen.

 

For indicating that Maya isn't really finished loading, I was thinking Maya could display progressbar of plugings loading on the status bar, so you could see something is going on.

 

jbbarnette427
Enthusiast

That sounds reasonable but it really needs some kind of indication. it can casue reall problem if you start clicking on things too early

petr_zloty
Participant

Solved that problem by custom plugin that displays popup until all plugins are loaded. It also notify user with audio when Maya is really ready.

maya_loading_plugins.gif
userX4542
Advocate

I don't think this is a huge issue but a splash screen with a loading bar would be great. Error messages should be visible one way or the other.

 

alexis_p
Contributor

@pe that's a great stop gap idea !

Mike_Rochefort
Collaborator

I also agree that this is something that is very much needed. I understand Maya’s losing progress and have been accustomed to waiting, but there are still times where this slips the mind and actions are attempted. If there’s was a loading bar in the status line that would be great! I would also push for locking the main UI (not sure what bugs could crop up if multiple windows are opened) just to prevent any other issues if users trying to interact before everything is ready. 

sanders3d
Contributor

funny how many people have "liked" this suggestion, and it's still under "gathering support" 🙂

trevor.adams
Alumni

Good point @sanders3d.  And on that note, I'll mark this one as "Under Review".  What that means is:

  • The Maya team has reviewed and discussed the idea, and agreed that it at the very least demands further investigation on our part
  • There are more than enough votes here
  • Folks can still continue to vote on this idea

I'm personally glad that a lot of you came out to vote on this one.  Maya should start up better than it does currently, there's no question about that.  Specifically...

  1. It should start faster
  2. It should only be usable when it's truly idle, and no scripts, plug-ins, whatever else needs to finish loading
  3. It should give you an indication of what's loaded and what remains to be loaded
  4. It shouldn't pull focus every half-second if it truly isn't "ready" yet, as @DomeAlessi points out

So yes, I personally want us to fix this ... and happy that I have this 70-vote idea to back it up.  Keep the good ideas coming.

trevor.adams
Alumni
Status changed to: Under Review
 
_wOLVERINe_
Enthusiast

The funny thing with this Maya startup delay is... Now when I load up Photoshop or any huge program, I automatically wait a few seconds before I start clicking about, while this is totally not necessary 🙂

ajoss13
Participant

Is it also possible to load all the modules from .mod files before Maya attempts to load a scene supplied with command-line argument?
It looks like right now 2018.4 is trying to load the scene right away, 'requires' in scene forcing Maya to search for the plug-in, but it's not available, since .mod files are not parsed yet or such. It looks like it's first failing to find all the script files from the .mod, fails loading the scene, and just then makes all the paths and scripts available for interactive session.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

_wOLVERINe_
Enthusiast

If Arnold got loaded (which is also loaded through .mod file) everything else should have been before the file is processed. Unless you've set it up wrong somehow.

 

That said, I think Autodesk should make a proper configuration tool for Maya that covers All of this stuff: .mod files, maya.env, userSetup.mel, userSetup.py, all the windows environment strings. It's a mess now.

 

Hell, that idea alone needs a post on this forum. I'll go ahead and do just that 🙂 

DevilsFork
Enthusiast

For someone who works in Maya 8 hours a day, also usually experiencing about that many crashes in the same time period, this is a constant annoyance. This is particularly true as it seems to me that it doesn't always take the same amount of time for Maya to load completely -- in particular after a crash it appears to take even longer to become fully responsive, always stuttering a few times in the process. In the heat of a production crunch, it really is a pain to not know to the millisecond when it's possible to open a scene. It can also cause you to appear to be sitting in front of an empty Maya scene doing nothing to anyone walking past -- always great with stressed out production supervisors. It would be great to not have to sit there and try to tumble a camera until I can see that the program is loaded.

Boon_in_Oz
Participant

Related, not the same, can Maya not pop itself to the front while loading?

Maya 2018 takes ~1 minute to start, and during that time I do other stuff. Three or four times towards the end of startup, I suddenly find that I'm typing in the Maya window. It also does it while loading a new scene.

(3DS Max is far worse, FWIW.)

This goes against the Windows guidelines, as well as being obviously annoying.

 

(Edit: I made this a separate suggestion: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-ideas/don-t-take-window-focus-during-startup-or-file-load/idi-p/...)

trevor.adams
Alumni
Status changed to: Accepted
 
leecaste
Enthusiast

Wouldn't it make more sense to load the heavier stuff in the background?

 

Basically being able to use Maya once the UI is loaded and load everything else in the background and even pausing it in case the user goes directly to open a scene and giving that scene priority and finish loading the background stuff once the scene is open?

 

This would make Maya feel super fast even if it´s doing stuff that should be unnoticed by the user.

sanders3d
Contributor

@leecaste This can cause scenes to be invalid or broken as the heavy plugins are mostly compiled plugins that you need to have in order for the scene to be functional. 

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