Do plug-ins need to be recompiled for Maya Extensions?

[Anonymous]

In general, is it still true that Maya plug-ins need to be recompiled for extension packs? In the past, a Maya extension was considered a new build, so the plug-in had to recompiled for the new SDK. However, the release notes for Maya 2016 Extension 1 don't specify this. Are the new features now treated as separable plugins?

The reason I ask is that our studio has a policy of not installing extension packs for fear of breaking mission-critical, 3rd-party plug-ins (renderers, crowd simulation, fluids, etc.), especially when those other developers might not bother to recompile for extension packs. Not to mention having to redeploy those plugins if they developers did recompile them. But if the compatibility fear is no longer accurate, maybe we can benefit from some of the extension features without sacrificing other plug-ins.

[vijaya.prakash · Accepted solution]

Yes and No. For few extension releases we would have specified in the release notes that the third-party plugins should be recompiled and for few extension releases no need to recompile.

In your case, for Maya 2016 extension 1 release, no need to recompile the third-party plugins. The plugins which compiled against Maya 2016 should work with Maya 2016 extension 1.

Moreover, the service pack # paired with an extension pack (e.g. Maya 2016 Extension 1 SP5) always correspond
to the vanilla Maya service pack # (e.g. Maya 2016 SP5). so,both are same.

[Anonymous]

WHERE IS 2016.5 DEVKIT?
ONLY 2016.3 PUBLISHED AT APPEXCHANGE