Installation#

For a quickstart installation see the Getting Started page.

Default installation#

Prism can be installed using the provided installer or zip file, which can be downloaded from here.
In the future it will be also possible to download Prism from a GitHub repository.

Currently Prism is only available on Windows.

Prism can be installed locally on every workstation in your studio.

No additional installation on a server and no database setup is required. For a centralized setup see here.

Installer#

The installer will install Prism into this folder by default: C:\Program Files\Prism2
The installer shouldn’t be launched as admin from a non-admin account. It will ask for admin permissions in case it’s needed.

The plugin PrismInternals and Hub will be installed to C:\ProgramData\Prism2\plugins by default.
This is the default plugin location. Also all other plugins which will be installed afterwards will go into this folder.

Zip#

The zip file can be extracted in any location on your filesystem. The setup.bat can be used to create Prism shortcuts in your Windows start menu and on your desktop.

Plugins#

There is a wide range of available plugins to integrate Prism into 3rd party tools and to add specific features to Prism.

Plugins can be downloaded from the Prism Hub.
By default plugins will be installed to C:\ProgramData\Prism2\plugins.
You can change the plugin install location using the gear button in the Prism Hub.
Alternatively you can use the environment variable PRISM_DEFAULT_PLUGIN_PATH to set the default plugin installation path.

It’s possible to move a plugin after the installation to a different location.
Prism can load plugins from any custom location. To set the paths where Prism will look for plugins you can add and remove plugin paths in the Prism User Settings -> Plugins by clicking the gear button.
These paths are stored in this file and can be different for every Windows user: %userprofile%\Documents\Prism2\PluginPaths.json

Installing a plugin from the Hub will download the plugin into the folder mentioned above and then add the path to the PluginPaths.json file.
If you don’t see a specific plugin in the plugin list in the Prism User Settings, make sure it was downloaded and the path is added to the PluginPaths.json.

You can also use the environment variable PRISM_PLUGIN_PATHS to specify plugin paths separated by ;.
The environment variable PRISM_PLUGIN_SEARCH_PATHS allows you to specify folders in which Prism will search the sub-folders for plugins.

DCC integrations#

Some Prism plugins require you to setup the Prism DCC integration after the Prism plugin is installed.

For example after the Houdini and Maya plugin installation Prism will ask you where your Houdini and Maya preferences folders are located. Prism will add some files to these folders so that Prism will be loaded when you launch the DCC.

You can add and remove DCC integrations in the Prism User Settings -> DCC apps.

User Preferences#

Prism will save user preferences into this folder: %userprofile%\Documents\Prism2
The environment variable PRISM_USER_PREFS can be used to change the default preferences location.
The folder can be deleted to reset the user preferences. The folder and files will be created during the Prism launch if it doesn’t exist.

Silent Install#

In some cases you might want to install Prism without interacting with any gui (called silent install).
This can be done by executing the Prism installer with specific arguments.
Run the installer in the Windows Command Prompt with the -h argument to see a full list of available arguments.

The available arguments include:

--nogui: run the installer without gui. This argument can be skipped when the “installpath” argument is defined (dft=False)
--installpath: the path where Prism will be installed (dft=”C:Program FilesPrism2”)
--overwrite: if the installation folder should be overwritten if it exists already (dft=False)
--clear-userprefs: if existing Prism user preferences get deleted if they exist (dft=False)
--plugins: list of plugin names to install (dft=[])
--setup-integrations: if the Prism integration gets added to DCCs (dft=False)
--postinstall-script: path to Python script, which gets executed after the installation (dft=””)
--launch: if the Prism GUI should be launched after the installation (dft=False)
--username: the username to be used to login in combination with the password. Login is required for plugin installation. (dft=””)
--password: the password to be used to login in combination with the username. Login is required for plugin installation. (dft=””)
--accesstoken: the accesstoken to be used to login. Can be used instead of username and password. Login is required for plugin installation. (dft=””)

For example:

Prism_v2.0.0.exe -h - will print a list of available arguments
Prism_v2.0.0.exe --nogui - will install Prism with default settings
Prism_v2.0.0.exe --installpath D:/tools/Prism --overwrite --clear-userprefs --plugins Houdini Maya Blender Nuke --setup-integrations --launch --accesstoken 86661421-2850-484f-b664-6012d1f228e1 will install Prism to a custom location, overwrite files if the installpath already exists, will clear existing user preferences, install plugins for Houdini, Maya, Blender and Nuke, will setup the Prism DCC integrations for every DCC, which Prism can detect automatically and then launch the Prism gui.

Centralized Setup#

Prism can be installed in a central location in your studio like a server, which can simplify the maintenance for example when updating or downgrading to a different Prism version.
The disadvantage can be that the launch of Prism can take longer if your network speed is slow.

There are multiple ways to setup Prism in a central location.
One possible way is this:

download the Prism zip from the website
extract it and move it to a location on your server
run the setup.bat to create start menu and desktop shortcuts
open Prism and navigate to the Hub
click the gear button and set the default plugin path to a folder on your server
install any plugins from the Hub which you’d like to use
on all workstations in your studio set the PRISM_PLUGIN_PATHS environment variable to a list of paths where your plugins are installed separated by ;
from all workstations in your studio run the setup.bat to create Prism shortcuts (or use an automated solution as in the next section)

Automate Setup using Python Script#

The setup.bat will open a GUI to setup shortcuts, uninstaller and DCC integrations.
Instead of using the GUI it is possible to automate this setup using Python scripts.
The following example mimics the behavior of the setup.bat to setup shortcuts, uninstaller, DCC integrations.
It can also be used to set settings in the Prism User Preferences.

import os
import sys

sys.path.append("C:/Program Files/Prism2/Scripts")

import PrismCore
core = PrismCore.create(prismArgs=["noUI"])

# add shortcuts to start menu and desktop
core.setupStartMenu()

# add uninstaller, optional, will ask for admin permissions
core.setupUninstaller()

# add DCC integrations automatically
core.integration.addAllIntegrations()

# add specific DCC integration
core.integration.addIntegration("Maya", r"%s\Documents\maya\2024" % (os.getenv("USERPROFILE")))

# set user settings
core.setConfig("dccoverrides", "Maya_path", r"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2024\bin\maya.exe", config="user")
core.setConfig("dccoverrides", "Maya_override", True, config="user")

Updates#

When new Prism versions are available, Prism will display a popup on the next Prism launch to ask you if you want to update.
This popup will only appear for new “stable” versions, but not for new Prism versions, which are marked as “experimental.”
Alternatively you can also update or rollback to an older version in the Prism Hub.

In case you want to disable the update check and the popup, you can set the env var PRISM_UPDATE_CHECK_ENABLED to 0.

Firewall Exceptions#

If you are using the online licensing, Prism needs to connect to the Prism servers to login, validate your license and download plugins. In environments with strict firewall rules you might need to whitelist connections to the following domain:

https://service.prism-pipeline.com (port 443)

Anti-Virus warnings (false positives)#

Some Anti-Virus tools are reporting a false positive when installing Prism. This is usually because of this file: C:\Program Files\Prism2\Python311\Prism.exe

The Prism.exe is a copy of the pythonw.exe in the same folder. It only has a changed filename and a changed icon, which can be the reason that some Anti-Virus tools don’t trust the file.

There are two ways to workaround this problem:

You can add an exception for this file in your Anti-Virus tool to workaround this problem.
You can delete the Prism.exe, duplicate the pythonw.exe and rename it to Prism.exe. This will most likely remove the false positive warning and Prism will work without problem. The only difference with this method is that in some places a Python icon will be visible instead of the Prism icon, for example in the Windows Task Manager.

Troubleshooting#

Prism doesn’t start#If Prism doesn’t start when using the desktop/startmenu shortcuts, then this is most likely caused by one of these reasons:

1. An Anti Virus Software prevents the execution of this executable:
C:\Program Files\Prism2\Python311\Prism.exe
Check your Anti Virus Software settings and add an exception for this file if needed.

2. An error during the Prism startup. To find the reason for this error, use this file to start Prism with a command prompt:
C:\Program Files\Prism2\Tools\prism_gui_with_console.bat

If the command prompt closes too quickly, you can also open a new Windows command prompt and run the .bat file in there.
If there is any error during the startup, an error message will be visible in the command prompt.
Contact the support with this error message for more details and possible solutions.

Installation

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