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Exporter Guide

Round-Trip Workflow

Use this workflow for scenes that start as glTF or glb, are edited in Maya, and are then exported again with the built-in exporter.

Open Exporter Overview Install the Plug-in View Supported Features

  • 1. Import

    Use file/place2dTexture texture nodes. Keep materials, clips, and blendshapes.

  • 2. Edit

    Adjust materials, clips, and scene structure in Maya.

  • 3. Export

    Prefer Time Editor Clips with Bake Animation Keyframes On for web / real-time delivery.

  • 4. Validate

    Check the target runtime or run a glTF validator.

When importing the source asset, use these settings when possible:

  • Use file/place2dTexture texture nodes: enabled
  • Import Materials: enabled
  • Import Animations: enabled if you need animation round trip
  • Import Blendshapes: enabled if you need morph-target round trip
  • Import Gaussian Splats: enabled only when the companion GaussianSplatPlugin is available and you need splat content (PolyPulse3D; Windows only)
  • Turn on Export Animation and choose Time Editor Clips to keep imported clip names and ranges
  • For web and real-time viewers, keep Time Editor Clips with Bake Animation Keyframes On (recommended)
  • Leave Bake Animation Keyframes on (default) for denser, more reliable web / real-time playback
  • Turn Bake off when you plan to re-import into Maya and edit curves in the Graph Editor
  • Use Sampled when constraints or complex rigs drive the motion you see in the viewport
  • When exporting glTF, Resources defaults to Copy source files
  • Export Quad Topology only when you explicitly want Maya-to-Maya topology round trip
  • Gaussian Splats only when the companion GaussianSplatPlugin bridge is available (PolyPulse3D; Windows only)

Texture and UV Round Trip

The most reliable texture-transform round trip uses Maya file and place2dTexture nodes. That is why the importer defaults to Use file/place2dTexture texture nodes.

This allows the exporter to recover:

  • UV offsets and tiling
  • wrap modes
  • UV-set assignments

UV rotation is currently not working as expected

UV rotation from place2dTexture nodes is exported with pivot compensation (Maya rotates around UV center (0.5, 0.5) while KHR_texture_transform rotates around origin (0, 0), and the exporter adjusts the offset to compensate), but runtime support for KHR_texture_transform rotation is not working as expected at this time. Verify rotation results in your target viewer. Rotation is not exported at all for aiImage nodes.

Several files in one scene

You can import more than one glTF into the same Maya scene and export once.

  • Each import gets its own Material Variants File. A later import does not wipe variants you authored on an earlier File, and it does not append those variants onto the first File. Saving and reopening the Maya scene keeps each File’s export slots.
  • Each import gets its own Time Editor composition. Export with Time Editor Clips includes clips from every composition, not only the one selected in Animation Clips.
  • The time slider covers every Time Editor clip. A shorter second file does not cut the first.
  • Use Direct Clip Definitions for Export still includes Time Editor clips whose names are not in the Define Clips table.

Material Variants

Imported material variants can be re-exported as KHR_materials_variants when the scene still contains the variant metadata and the alternate materials have not been deleted.

Avoid deleting unused nodes in Hypershade if you plan to export variants later. Removing a variant or a File in the Material Variants panel leaves the Maya materials in the scene. See Material Variants.

Animation Clips

Imported animations become Time Editor clips. Export with Time Editor Clips and Bake Animation Keyframes On to keep that structure and deliver reliable playback in web and real-time viewers.

Hold / rest clips keep their pose and visibility so selecting a clip such as still in a viewer shows the intended product state, not a leftover pose from another clip.

Gaussian Splats

Round-tripping KHR_gaussian_splatting depends on the companion Gaussian Splat Importer and Exporter for Maya plug-in (GaussianSplatPlugin) on both import and export. That companion plug-in is Windows only. Get it from PolyPulse3D.

  • On import, splat primitives are skipped when payload import support is unavailable.
  • On export, GaussianSplatLocator nodes are skipped when the export bridge is unavailable.

Validation

After export, validate the file in your target runtime or with a glTF validator, especially if you enabled optional extensions such as Draco, KTX2, mesh quantization, or gaussian splatting.