Applications Addon Features

Applications, Tools and Filters

The Applications addon streamlines the setup of applications and tools across your studio. It allows you to set executable paths and startup environments, with support for various operating systems including Windows, Linux, and macOS.

The Addon features two primary settings categories: Definitions and Filters:

1. Definitions: available only in studio settings, allows to define all possible applications and tools that can be used across all projects.

2. Filters: defines when certain applications and tools are used on project level. This filters whether a certain application or tool should be enabled in a certain launch context, like a specific task type or project-wide.

Applications Web Actions

Web actions let you launch applications directly through the AYON web server. You can find these actions in the details panel.

The application addon handles the logic for web actions. Currently, there are no specific settings for web actions.

The application web actions are generated from your application's definitions in your production or development bundles, depending on the developer mode setting, and they adhere to your application’s filter settings.

Applications Addon Settings

Show only available applications

When enabled, AYON Launcher will display only those applications for which executable paths exist on the current machine. This acts as an extra filter to the Applications filters, ensuring that inaccessible applications are excluded from view.

Applications Definitions

In this section you can manage what Applications are available to your studio, locations of their executables, and their additional environments. In AYON context, each application that is integrated is also called a Host and these two terms will be used interchangeably in the documentation.

Built-in Applications

Each application definition has an application group e.g. Maya, Houdini, Nuke and etc.

Each Application is made of two levels.

1. Application group:

   1. Host name: Pipeline integration name supplied by an AYON addon, these are usually constants related to a host integration like "maya", "houdini", "nuke" and so forth. For now they are best left at the default values.

   2. Environment: Define extra environments that are applicable to all versions of the given application version dependent.

2. Application variant: For each application variant we have

   1. Name: application variant name

   2. Label: application variant label

   3. Arguments: Define default arguments (--nukex for instance)

      

   4. Executables: Define executables (per platform).

      

   5. Environment: Extend application's main environment.

   6. + button: To add more variants.

Additional Applications

It's possible to use applications addon to launch any applications that are not in built-in integrations that come with AYON.

• + button: Add application group.

Application group in additional applications exposes few more attributes:

• Application Name: The name of the application.

• Application Label: The label of the application and the application group (the name next to the toggle).

• Application Icon: The icon that would be displayed by the AYON launcher.

Applications filters

These filters define the applications that will be shown in the launcher tool. It is profile based filtering that allows to filter applications for specific task types.

1. Task Types: Choose from a list of task types to determine which ones the filter profile will affect. If you want the profile to apply to all tasks, leave it blank.

2. Allow: Determines the mode of the filter, there are two options:

   1. All applications

   2. Selected: when chosen, the Applications list will show up.

3. Applications: List of applications available for profile filter.

4. + button: Add new profile filter.

Default studio profile

Using default settings will show all applications for all task types. It is recommended to have one default profile without task types filter, with standard set of applications used in the studio.

Tools Definitions

A tool in AYON is anything that needs to be selectively added to your DCC applications. Most often these are plugins, modules, extensions or similar depending on what your package happens to call it.

Tools Definitions settings are very similar to Applications Definitions settings.

1. Tool Group:

   1. Name: Tool name.

   2. Label: Tool label. Name is used if not filled.

   3. Environments: Environments variables that will be applied to all tool variants.

2. Tool Variants:

   1. Name: Tool variant name.

   2. Label: Tool variant label. Name is used if not filled.

   3. Hosts: List of host names you want the tool variant to work with.

   4. Applications: Filter applications for which is tool applicable.

   5. Environments: tool variant environments

   6. + button: Add new tool variant.

3. + button: Add new tool group.

Tool Examples

AYON comes with some major CG renderers pre-configured as an example, but these and any others will need to be changed to match your particular environment.

Pre-configured Example - Autodesk Arnold

Tools filters

Tools that will be used on application launch. It is profile based filtering that allows to filter tools for a context. Tools can have more specific filtering than applications.

All the tools defined in Tools Definitions can then be assigned to projects, certain task types or even selectively for only certain folders. You can also change the tools versions on any project level all the way down to individual asset or shot overrides. So it is possible to upgrade you render plugin for a single shot, while not risking the incompatibilities on the rest of the project.

1. Folder Paths: Folder paths to determine which ones the filter profile will affect. It supports regex patterns.

2. Task Types: Choose from a list of task types to determine which ones the filter profile will affect.

3. Task Names: List of task names to determine which ones the filter profile will affect.

4. Tools: Tools list to determine which ones the filter profile will affect.

5. + button: Add application group filters profiles.

FAQ

Legacy: Applications and Tools attributes

Settings based filtering was introduced in applications addon release 1.0.0 . Before that applications were set with applications attribute on project (located under project anatomy) and tools were set using tools attribute on Project, Folder and Task entities.

For backwards compatibility the settings do allow to switch between new settings and attributes and the legacy behavior, so we don't break existing productions without option to change it back.