We have maya setup this way. While it's super easy to configure in a central place, it does not work without problems. For windows workstations, I had to install maya locally. After installation, you can run server copy of maya and it works most times. We had some minor issues (with muscles IIRC), but this could be due to our messed network setup. We're building new network, so I'll be able to verify this soon. Linux render nodes (which doesn't run GUI) seems to work perfectly.

Nuke and 3delight also run from server copy. I heard one could experience 3delight4maya slow shader translation in case of network install, but I never experienced it. Other minor apps are djv and vDub.

I'd like to know how to install python from central location, especially for windows. Has anyone experience with this ?

EDIT: Recently we tried running more maya instances from network server, and we experienced problems. This was linux64-maya placed on a low performance network server (CentOS/Samba). Trying to run more sessions at the same time put server harddisk under heavy load, and maya refused do start at all. Typical error message was smth like: "Unable to dynamicaly load xxx.so File does not exist" and it was related to maya's native libraries. Moving maya to faster server, or better, copying to local drives solves the problem. So yes, it seems maya doesn't like networked install...

By: michalf [ Editor ]