Per-Mesh Material Manager for Autodesk Maya

Per-Mesh Material Manager is a lightweight, production-ready plugin for Autodesk Maya. It provides a clean, slot-based workflow similar to Unreal Engine's material editor, but directly inside Maya. Instead of cluttering your workflow with all scene shaders, it focuses only on the materials connected to your currently selected mesh.

Key Features

• Mesh-only view - Displays only the materials connected to the selected mesh, no global clutter.
• Slot editor - View, reorder, and apply the material slot order exactly as stored in Maya (instObjGroups).
• Quick material actions:
  • Assign - Assign the selected material to chosen faces.
  • Add - Create a new material (Arnold aiStandardSurface if available, otherwise Lambert) + shading group, and assign it immediately to selected faces.
  • Delete - Remove a material and its shading group from the mesh without automatic reassignment to initialShadingGroup. Also supports clean deletion of unused textures and utility nodes.
• Integration with Maya editors:
  • Double-click a material in the table to open it in Attribute Editor
  • Open directly in Hypershade or Node Editor with one click
• UV workflow - Automatically isolates and frames UVs of the selected material in the UV Editor, switching to UV component mode for precise work.
• Selection tools:
  • Select faces assigned to a material
  • Unselect faces of the chosen material
  • Find and select all unassigned faces
• Material swapping workflow - Delete a material, select unassigned faces, then add a new material. Done in just 3 clicks.
• Context menu integration - Appears directly in Maya's right-click menu (official RMB callbacks, no hacks).

Compatibility

• Autodesk Maya 2022-2024 - PySide2 / shiboken2
• Autodesk Maya 2025+ - PySide6 / shiboken6
• Python 3 only

Installation

1. Copy materialManager.py into your Maya plug-ins folder:
   C:\Users\<username>\Documents\maya\<version>\plug-ins
2. In Maya: Windows → Settings/Preferences → Plug-in Manager
3. Locate materialManager.py, enable Loaded (and optionally Auto Load).

Usage

• Context menu: In Object or Component mode, right-click a mesh → Material Manager
• Python command: import maya.cmds as cmds; cmds.materialManager()
• Shelf/Menu: Add the command above to a custom shelf button or menu item
• Hotkey:
  1. Open Hotkey Editor
  2. Create a new Runtime Command (Python) and enter:
     import maya.cmds as cmds; cmds.materialManager()
  3. Assign a key combination

Why use this tool?

Managing materials in Maya can often feel slow and cluttered, especially in complex scenes. This plugin makes it fast and focused, with a clear slot-based workflow that feels natural if you've used Unreal Engine. Instead of digging through the Hypershade or dealing with default reassignments, you get precise control: add, delete, swap, and isolate materials in just a few clicks.

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