Setup

Table of contents
  1. Pre-requisites
  2. Download
  3. Installation
    1. Installation options
      1. Only for me
      2. For all users
        1. License and modules
        2. Canvas caches
      3. Only for me - but read-only
  4. Activation
    1. First time activation
    2. Re-activation
    3. License Migration
  5. FAQ

Pre-requisites

  • Install latest Visual C++ Redistributable (download)
Requirements Minimum Recommended Notes
Autodesk Maya 2022.4 2023.3 Maya 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 are supported
OS Windows 10
RHEL 7.9		 Windows 11
RHEL 8+		 Linux available on-demand for Studios, contact us
VRAM 4 GB 8+ GB Higher resolutions and scene complexity require more VRAM
Memory 8 GB 16+ GB As much as your Maya scene requires

Resizable BAR (Base Address Register) or AMD SAM (Smart Access Memory) found in modern hardware can significantly increase performance when using the Flair Graph.

Download

Get a commercial, non-commercial or free version of Flair below.

Get Flair

Free versions are limited only in resolution to 1280 x 800.

Upon purchasing Flair, you can download any version through the link you receive via email.
You can also download the free version and activate a license with your activation key.

Installation

Installing Flair is as simple as a drag-and-drop.

Installing and activating Flair for Maya
Updating Flair for Maya!
  1. Make sure you have all pre-requisites
  2. Download and extract all the contents of the Flair zip file into any folder outside of Maya
    e.g., Documents/Flair, C:/Flair, a shared drive.
  3. Open the folder where you extracted Flair into, this will become your installation folder
  4. Drag-and-drop the install_maya.mel file onto the Maya viewport
  5. Select for whom you want to install Flair for and click Accept (see options)
    Flair installation prompt
    Flair installation prompt that appears after the viewport drag-and-drop.
  6. Upon successful installation, a restart prompt will appear
    Dialog stating that the changes were successful
    Flair has been successfully installed.
  7. Restart Maya
  8. After restarting, the Flair shelf should appear in Maya
  9. Click on the glob or test shelf button to verify the installation and prompt the Flair activation
  10. Activate Flair if needed.

If the drag-and-drop of the install_maya.mel file fails, make sure that its directory only contains valid ASCII characters, or Maya won’t be able to read the MEL file.

Installation options

Only for me

Recommended for individuals for simple installations without admin rights.

The installer will only insert the Flair paths into your Maya.env file for the Maya version in use.

All flair-related files are kept within the Flair installation folder, except for the license file, which is placed in:

  • Windows: Documents/maya
  • Linux: ~/maya

The “Only for me” option allows keeping different versions of Flair on different versions of Maya. However, everyone using Flair will need read/write permissions to the Flair installation folder.

For all users

Recommended for studios or institutions where multiple artists use Flair from the same workstation/server.

This method allows installing Flair automatically in all supported Maya versions, even in environments with strict read-only policies e.g., Rez.

The Flair installation “For all users” requires admin/sudo privileges to place files in:

License and modules
  • Windows: %CommonProgramFiles%/Autodesk Shared/Modules/maya
  • Linux: /usr/autodesk/modules/maya
Canvas caches
  • Windows: %ProgramData%/Flair
  • Linux: opt/Flair

After installation and activation, artists will find their presets and preferences in:

  • Windows: Documents/AppDocuments/Flair
  • Linux: ~/AppDocuments/Flair

If you need to customize where the program data (caches) and app documents (presets/preferences) are stored, you can follow the instructons within flair/maya/scripts/coop/_custom_dirs_example.json.

Only for me - but read-only

There is a third hidden option where you can make an “Only for me” installation read-only by setting the environment variable FLAIR_READ_ONLY=1. This will force Flair to behave as if it was installed “For all users”.

For this installation to work properly, make sure the directories to save canvas caches, presets and preferences have read/write access for artists using Flair, as these will default to the “For all users” directories (which can be customized within the _custom_dirs_example.json file).

Keep in mind that the license will remain within the local Maya folder, so it won’t be available for other users.

Activation

Purchasing a Flair license enables the full functionality of Flair upon activation.
Activate Flair by entering and validating an activation key that is sent to you via email shorly after purchase.

An internet connection is required to activate and validate Flair licenses, except for the Free version.

A single Flair license can be active on only one computer at a time.
Licenses can be migrated between computers after 12 hours have passed from a previous activation.

First time activation

The first time Flair is run, you will be prompted with the following dialog:

First-time activation dialog
Select how you want to activate Flair.
  • Activate with key lets you to enter the activation key of your license.
  • Activate free version activates the free version of Flair, with limited resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
  • Cancel runs Flair as the free version this time only. You will be prompted again the next time Flair loads.

After clicking Activate with key, enter the activation key you received when purchasing Flair and click OK.

Enter activation key dialog
Enter your activation key in the text box.

Once activated, if the license has never been activated, you will be prompted with the End-User-License Agreement (EULA):

End-User-License Agreement dialog
End-User-License Agreement (EULA).

The EULAs for each version of Flair can be found below:

Once you have read and agreed to the End-User License Agreement, click on I Agree. You will then be asked to confirm the activation on this computer.

Confirm activation dialog
Confirm activation by clicking "Activate".

Click Activate to confirm and activate, or Cancel to abort the activation.

Re-activation

If a license has been previously activated, you may want to remove the activated license and activate a different license instead.

This is useful when upgrading/downgrading between the Free, Community, Indie or Studio licenses.

Changing the Flair license

You can activate a different license by re-installing Flair again and choosing to Delete the existing license.

Installation dialog with Delete the existing license selected
Re-installation dialog with license deletion.
  1. Open the folder where Flair was installed from
  2. Drag-and-drop the install_maya.mel file onto the Maya viewport
  3. Within the installation dialog, check “Delete the existing license”
  4. Proceed with the installation
  5. Restart Maya
  6. Load Flair to trigger the license activation again

License Migration

Licenses can be migrated between computers (transferred) once 12 hours have passed from a previous activation.

Attempting to migrate the license before 12 hours have passed will lead to a failed activation.

To migrate the license, just follow the same steps as for the re-activation on the new computer to delete the activated license and activate the new license.

After inputting the activation key on the new computer, you will be prompted to confirm the migration of the license.

Flair migration prompt
Flair license prompt that appears if an existing license is found.

Click Activate to confirm, or Cancel to abort activation and run the free version for this session.

After a successful migration, the license in the other computer will automatically deactivate and you can use Flair in the new computer.

FAQ

I can’t install ‘only for me’

If the user-based installation won’t work no matter what, you can manually enter the required environment variable in the Maya.env file.

  1. Open the Maya.env file usually found in Documents/maya/202X/Maya.env with a text editor (make sure its the Maya.env file of the version of Maya you want to install in)
  2. Enter this environment variable: MAYA_MODULE_PATH=#YOURFLAIRMAYAPATH# (replace #YOURFLAIRMAYAPATH# with the path where Flair/maya is located)
  3. Restart Maya.

I can’t install ‘for ALL users’

The installation for all users requires administrator rights in the computer where you are installing Flair in. This is because we need to put the module file within Program Files. To do this manually, follow the steps below:

  1. Duplicate the flair.mod file within the Flair/maya folder and open the duplicate with a text editor.
  2. Change all ./ with the path to the Flair folder (with forward slashes) and save.
  3. (Windows) Copy the edited flair.mod and paste it in Program Files/Common Files/Autodesk Shared/Modules/Maya/202X (paste it in the Maya version that you want to install Flair in).
  4. Restart Maya.

Whitelist URL and port on firewall for the Flair license to be validated

If you can’t validate Flair on your workstation because your access to the internet is restricted by a firewall, add a whitelist rule for our licensing server: api.keygen.sh on port 443.

I have not received my activation key

The email is most likely in your spam folder. Please double-check the spam folder of the email you entered or your Patreon email (for Community licenses).

If the license still has not arrived within an hour contact us to help you get started.

I receive an activation failure

If activation key is not valid, or the existing license is no longer valid, an error message will appear. Retry will prompt you to enter a valid activation key, and Cancel will run Flair as the free version this session.

The viewport is all black and I get the Error compiling GLSL code.

This can happen when the viewport is forced to use DirectX (e.g., with an environment variable) instead of OpenGL. During installation, we try to automatically set the Viewport 2.0 rendering engine to OpenGL, but this can fail depending on your setup. Check your Maya setup for anything that might force the viewport to use DirectX and remove it. Then, manually set the rendering engine to OpenGL (Preferences->Display->Viewport 2.0->Rendering Engine->OpenGL Core Profile). Maya will prompt to restart the application and Flair will be able to run after restarting.