Autodesk Maya on the M1 Max 16” MacBook Pro - An Animator’s Perspective
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- I have spent the past year using a M1 Max MacBook Pro 16” for personal and freelance animation work - predominantly in Autodesk Maya. I now have a pretty good idea of how it runs (through Rosetta) on Apple Silicon. In this video, I will run through a few different tests to show how it performs, and give an animator’s perspective on whether it’s worth purchasing for Maya. Hope this is useful to you.
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Specs:
Apple MacBook Pro 16" (2021)
M1 Max 10 core CPU, 32 core GPU
64GB Ram
2TB SSD
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Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:47 - Autodesk - Is there a native version coming?
02:49 - Rosetta 2 - How it works
05:39 - Running multiple instances of Maya
09:40 - How a simple scene performs
11:13 - How a complex scene performs
14:58 - Viewport Interactivity
20:02 - Rig Interactivity
26:17 - Animation Caching
32:05 - Is an Apple Silicon Mac worth it for Maya?
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Links:
How x86 to arm64 Translation Works in Rosetta 2
www.infoq.com/news/2020/11/ro...
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Rigs used:
Dana: gabrielsalas.gumroad.com/l/kKyvP
Skull Chaser: www.turbosquid.com/FullPrevie...
Apollo: ramonarango.gumroad.com/l/Apo...
Kayla: friggingawesome.gumroad.com/l...
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Music used:
Six Seasons by Unicorn Heads
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Social
Instagram: / jamesboylestudio
Twitter: / jamesbstudio
#autodeskmaya #applesilicon #M1MaxMacBookPro #animation - Фільми й анімація
Thank you for such a thorough demo into using Apple Silicon, like the MacBook Pro, with the versions of Maya you tested! This gives me a lot to consider and helpful on a future purchase.
It's really great to see another animators experience with this machine. Looks like things are running great! Also nice to have a sneaky peek at your work+ workflows.
No worries, hope it was helpful. Yeh they are great machines, just wish Autodesk would hurry up with native version! Thanks
The graph editor is really slow on m1 max, zooming in and out and navigating is choppy and heavy compared to my other macs
I’m the guy that asked the AMA developer. I recently heard they are actually beta testing a native Apple silicon version of Maya and already have a working m1 beta version. But they are not allowed to say anything specific about it because of some law.. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
Interesting. That sounds promising. Fingers crossed we hear more soon, maybe after macOS Ventura releases. Thanks the for update.
Finally a video of how Maya runs on the M1 from an animators perspective. There's just one other video with some dude duplicating objects - interesting, but this is so much better. Thanks a million for making it. It runs better than I had hoped. Would love a native port, of course, but the performance looks surprisingly good through Rosetta.
You're welcome, glad it helped. Rumour is a native version is in beta, but could be a while before we see it.
Hi James and anyone wondering how the newer machines work with Maya from an animators perspective. Got myself a M3 Max now. My use case is as an animator - no rendering. My previous system was a desktop AMD 5950x and a 1080ti. I get roughly double the fps in Maya 2024, so I'm happy with that. Only weird thing I have noticed, is a slowdown during playback whenever I hover the mousepointer back and forth over the little GUI-elements situated over each viewport. - So I just refrain from doing that and all is good. @@JamesBAnim
Thank you! Was interesting to watch.
You’re welcome.
Thank you so much for this video ❤
You’re welcome.
Great video. Every other review of Apple silicon seems to assume that all creative work done on Macs is video editing. I use a 14” MBP and iPad Pro for 2D work. For 3D, it’s windows/Nvidia all the way for me. But glad to see there are people doing 3D on Macs.
Glad you liked. It makes sense that the majority of videos skew towards photo and video editing, Apple has focussed on those industries for quite a while. But a computer is just a tool, some are faster at certain things, but they are fundamentally all the same in the end.
Gracias por el video
Great overview, James. Thanks for doing this!
I'm still learning 3D animation, and 3D modeling in general. I've been using a M1 Pro (with CPU % GPU cores maxed out and 32GB of memory) with Maya 2022 and so far, no problems whatsoever. Of course, I'm not working with complex projects like you.
I also have a PC (Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 3060Ti, 32GB) and my renders are a bit faster on the Mac, using V-Ray. On the PC side, I've tried render using CUDA and RTX, but they are slower than the CPU render itself. Someone told me that if I'm going to render via GPU, I need to create my project from scratch thinking about the GPU, like lights and whatnot, but like I said, I'm still learning.
Cheers!
You're welcome Lucas. I'm intrigued, if you're maxing out your CPU and GPU, you must be pushing the Mac quite far. I've rarely maxed things out, only when rendering. Yeh rendering on a PC with CUDA or Optix will give faster results for sure, just the mature software/hardware optimisations.
@@JamesBAnim Oh, by maxing out the CPU and GPU I meant that I bought the M1 Pro with 10 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores - there are other options with fewer cores. I guess the % instead of the & there made my phrase more confusing. 😅
Ahhh. That makes sense. 👍🏻
Great video, thanks.
You’re welcome.
Hello. Thank you for showing how to use Maya on Mac. Recently I stared using Maya and it is very first time doing these type of staff. I'm so excited to use Maya, however now I'm stuck with view sequence staff. I tried many things but there is no answer to be shown view sequence on Mac. I tried Quick time player, INNA, things like that. Is there another way to see that object I crate? Also, is that right that unless I have to use this view sequence I can't update staff I create on any SNS? If it's possible, I would like to see this comments and answer my questions. Thanks.
James, I have bought a MacBook Pro M2Max 64gb. It is running so fine and smooth with Maya. Even for complex hair and fur development with XGen. Thanks for your attention.
Beto Prado
That’s great! Glad to hear it all worked out for you.
Thanks for this detailed breakdown James. Would you be able to do a follow up video since Arnold 7.1.4 for Maya 2023 has native support for Apple Silicon?
@blane237. No problem, hope it was helpful. I didn't know that Arnold now has native AS support. Will add it to the list of things to look at next. Cheers.
Also using the 16 inch M1 Max Macbook Pro and started learning Maya. Really hoping we see some great updates with Maya 2024. It should come out in the next few months if I got their Update Cycle correct. Let's hope we get some kind of update for improved apple silicon support.
Apple should release their Mac Pro in the Sommer at WWDC or at least show him off, so a native Maya Ver. could be something they could use to demo it. They mostly only show Cinema 4D in their PR Reels which is already native and seems to perform very well. Let's hope we get something for Maya and Arnold too.
Fingers crossed for WWDC
Very useful information. I've been using Maya on both Windows and Mac M1 and I haven't noticed any difference. A native version should make an improvement in performance so I hope it comes soon.
Changing the subject, do you use a graphic tablet to work in Maya? Thank you very much
Yeh any improvement to performance, feature compatibility and stability is always welcome. Fingers crossed soon. re graphics tablet. I do, I use a Wacom PT Small at home, and a Wacom Intuos Medium at work. Both work fine with Maya. Only thing mainly to get used to is the middle mouse button, have to remap to button on pen, and have on hold.
Hi James,
Can you tell me which Autodesk maya version is running in mac studio? I have searched and get result for maya 2020 is last version for mac. that is true?
Hi. @devendrayadav7495 There isn't really a difference between what version can run, 2020 through to 2023. All the M series chips are similar in terms of architecture, so you should be able to download and run any number of them on, Macbook's through to Mac Studio's.
Can you share what are the specs of the machine that you working with for this?
Great video by the way!
Thank you, glad you like it. Specs are: Apple MacBook Pro 16" (2021), M1 Max 10 core CPU, 32 core GPU, 64GB Ram, and 2TB SSD.
I'm thinking to get a mac studio m1 max with 1tb ssd, would you recommend grabbing more ram say 64gb too or is the base 32gb sufficient?
Depending on what you will use the Mac for, I would highly consider an M2 Pro Mac Mini over an M1 Mac/Ultra Mac Studio. The jump in performance seems quite good, and then you can spend more money on RAM. Because these new machines have non-upgradable RAM, I would always get as much RAM as you can afford. You can always use external hard drives to expand the storage options easily. Plus the Apple Silicon macs really shine with more ram.
hey pretty cool video ! i am looking into mac, do you think the new macmini M2 pro, will be also this good ? thanks
Thank you. Yes the M2 Pro Mac Mini from what I’ve read is a good machine - if you just want to animate. I would try and get as much RAM as you can afford in it, these Apple Silicon Macs work better with more ram. Like others have asked though.
Thank you 🙂👍
You’re welcome
@@JamesBAnim while doing animation normal project files do you face an crash issues?
there are very less content regarding m1 chipset and autodesk maya. thank you for this video.
I’ve found Maya on Apple Silicon chips (M1 etc) quite stable overall. It doesn’t crash any more than it does on Windows.
Hey James, thank you for the great review. Have you since noticed any hiccups or ran into any problems whilst animating on the M1 MBP? Also are you thinking to upgrade to the latest M3 chips?
You're welcome. For my needs, just animating, I haven't really come across any major issues. There are some tiny slow downs in the Maya (all versions) viewport when adjusting the curbs curves width higher than 1. But that is because Maya is still using openGL to render those curves, and macOS depreciated openGL a while ago. But its not a massive thing, and you get around it pretty quick.
I'm not considering the upgrade to the M3, not because I think the chip is bad, by all accounts it's a great upgrade. It's more to do with money. I usually keep my Macs for a few years, so by the time I've saved up enough, the M4 or M5 will be out.
Sir please send the link where I download maya on macbook pro m2
Can't post links in comments, but if you Google 'autodesk products updates' that should point you in right direction. You will need to create an Autodesk account though.
Hi, James! I wanted to ask if the software has improved in any way in the past year and which version of Maya you are using at the moment. Thanks!
Hi. It has improved, Maya 2024 is a universal app, which means it’s built for Intel and Apple Silicon chips. So a lot of the little issues have been addressed whilst using day to day. There are a few UI bugs, but I think that’s because Maya is using OpenGL, and MacOS depreciated that. But overall it’s much better.
Autodesk had finally added native Apple Sillicon support for Maya 2024 including Arnold!
I saw that. I don’t have the time right now todo a full test video sadly, but can confirm that Maya 2024 is a universal app (one binary that runs on Intel and AS). It opens fine and appears to be quite snappy. Hoping to have more time to test it properly soon.
not arnold gpu though
@@Yyuiop Yes and that still sucks.. Redshift does work on apple silicon, why can’t Arnold work?
Can I run easily animation Softwares like Maya 3d on MacBook Pro?
Yes, yes you can. The video covers quite a lot of Maya. Hopefully it’s helpful.
Very informative! Quick question: The installer crashes for me every time I attempt to install Maya 2023. Any tips on installing the actual software on an M1 Mac?
Glad it helped. Hmmm that's annoying, sorry to heat that. I haven't had the installer crash on me yet, that's new. It might be worth checking System Preferences > Security & Privacy pane when you open the installer app. Because MacOS has much tighter security for installing apps outside of the App Store, you may have todo 1 of 2 things. 1) MacOS may ask you to 'allow' the installer to be trusted in the bottom of the Security & Privacy pane. 2) If that doesn't do it, I would Google "how to turn gatekeeper off on Mac". It requires some Terminal usage, but it's straight forward. After that, hopefully MacOS allows the Installer to open and run. That is of course if that was the cause of the initial crash problem. Hope that helps.
thanks much! It was a privacy issues. Once i resolved that it installed with no problems!
For the creation of 3D environments and 3D clothes for the metaverse, being the "do everything", which machine do you recommend me? MacBooks Pro Max or any laptop with Nvidia RTX 3090 or 3080? Note: I have no problem with costs. Thank you, friend! Great video.
You're welcome.
I do very little 3D env/cloth work, or anything to do with the metaverse really. But I will say, ignore the hardware for the moment, if you are creating 3D work, does that software run on Apple Silicon, natively or fine through Rosetta? - worth checking 'isapplesiliconready dot com' to see, or the specs on the 3D software companies website. It is all down to software compatibility. Back to hardware... As I mentioned at the end of the video, if rendering is a priority for your 3D work and workflow, then the Apple Silicon GPUs aren't as fast or good as Nvidia or AMD... yet, the optimisations in software with things like Optix and Cuda for Nvidia on Windows are hard to ignore. Yes Blender and C4D have native versions, Houdini is partially native too, and GPU rendering through Metal is there for Blender (Cycles) and C4D (RedShift), but they are early in their journey to getting Metal and Apple Silicon optimised. Maya on the other hand is not native, and native rendering options are limited. GPU rendering with Redshift works in a non-native Maya. Arnold, Renderman etc are still CPU. If you don't need to render, and all you are doing is modelling, simulations, surfacing and exporting models or caches, then Apple Silicon is pretty good for all that, but from my understanding, those areas and workflows are mainly CPU based, which is where the M1 macs shine.
I would consider your current and future workflows for what you want to do and see what will give you the least friction in achieving that. Hope that's helpful.
@@JamesBAnim thanks, James!
@@JamesBAnim hello, I'm using 3D TRIDIMAX, I was very happy to see you, do you recommend me to buy
Assuming you mean 3Ds Max?? I haven’t used it on Intel or Apple Silicon macs, so hard for me to recommend honestly. But… I would imagine the user experience is quite similar running through Rosetta.
James, are you considering the M3 upgrade? Could you share your business need or workflow needs for or against the upgrade? Thank you.
I'm not considering the upgrade to the M3, not because I think the chip is bad, by all accounts it's a great upgrade. It's more to do with money. I usually keep my Macs for a few years, so by the time I've saved up enough, the M4 or M5 will be out.
Same philosophy here. My M1 performance has given me very little reason to upgrade based on its performance.@@JamesBAnim
Hmm I recently started using maya 2023 on a 2019 MacBook Pro at work and I have found it awful. So many constant crashes that it wasn’t really my experience using maya as a pc user. Is it really something that makes maya on OS X be way more unstable or I’ve just bad luck?
I wouldn’t say it’s your bad luck… the 2019 Intel MacBook Pros were terrible, the thermal throttling, then overheating caused the CPU to be practically useless. It’s why I stayed on my 2012 MBP for so long, they just kept getting worse… until M1. It’s a very different experience I promise you.
@@JamesBAnim wow thanks that’s great to hear. I even have a TON of issues while animating where the curves will disappear or the channels in the channel box will just not show at all and I need to just quit and restart Maya.
I get the feeling these are display driver issues. So you get none of that on Apple silicon?
Oh definitely don’t get that. Channels and curves disappearing sounds maddening! Occasionally get a slow graph editor, but not consistently with every rig, each rig is slightly different.
Might also be worth trying a different version of Maya, I’ve found 2020 and 2023 to be the most stable, but try 2019 and 2022 too, see if that makes a difference.
So if compare to old mc on Intel . did you feel difference in FPS or other stuff?
It depends on which version of Maya you will use on Apple Silicon. 2019 and 2020 are slightly better on Intel-based Macs in terms of responsiveness and fps. 2022 is (in my experience) pretty unstable and unusable. 2023 is a jump ahead, very usable, responsive, and has good fps. Very likely because 2023 was the only app compatible with MacOS 12 and up. But considering all of this is through Rosetta, its great.
@@JamesBAnim thnak u, do u have expireince on Windows PC, when i tested , better FPS fas in Win machine, than in Mac Os, and worth was on Linux
P.S In Windows memory overload too , and flush cache doesnt help , so that is app issue
I do have experience on Windows, I use it on my work workstation. It def gives higher FPS, as Maya is still an x86 app. And Intel and AMD windows machine are all x86. But I can get 24fps on my Mac and Windows machines, and that is what I am animating too, so it doesn't make much of a difference. If you want todo game animation, then hitting 30, 60fps and up is more important. So that will require testing on my both operating systems and computers. Linux I heard is better performance across the board, as its a simpler OS. Yeh flush cache has been an issue for a while on Maya.
hi i am using mac studio with m1 max processor. I'm not having any problems while modeling autodesk maya. it's just that sometimes there are shutdowns. but it takes too long to render. I am using redshift render engine. I want to render 30 second animation parts.
do you have a suggestion
Hi. I sadly haven’t used Redshift yet, so have little knowledge to be able to help. Sorry about that.
If you are using Redshift inside of Maya. One thing to note, Maya on Apple Silicon does NOT see the GPU, Redshift inside of Maya supposedly sees the GPU, but, because of Maya not using the GPU, it may not work as intended. I would head over to the Maxon/Redshift forums, there are a few threads of Mac users who will be able to help further.
In terms of shutdowns, do you mean Maya is crashing for no reason?? Or are you referring to Redshift again? If the later, again, have a look on the RS forums. If the former, well Maya is as stable as it is on Windows, and it crashes for no reason sometimes. 2022 crashes a lot more on Macs. If it gives you an error code when crashing, you can Google the error code and see what others or Autodesk have come across.
@@JamesBAnim Thank you for your answer
30 seconds=720 frames. Depend on the complexity of your scene and the render settings, a frame may take up to 10 seconds or 30 minutes for rendering. So you need at least 6 hours, and up to a few weeks if the quality you set too high.
The more refraction materials, reflection, dispersion,... The more time it will take.
If you just want to show your work, consider use external render softwares (like Marmoset Toolbag or Unreal,..).
@@chauconinh2688 Thank you I still haven't solved my problem, I think I'll have to find a solution on the pc side
@@selcukturgut3d unless you get a workstation beast with multiple RTX4Ks you’ll run into this same issue. Consider a render farm service & factor that cost into your jobs. Macs are unbeatable for creation & on-the-go work and on-premise animation rendering may be a cost fallacy.
I was really disappointed by Autodesk. Other companies such as Adobe and Toon Boom Harmony already have support for apple silicon. Thanks for the video.
You're welcome. Yeh Autodesk seem to be dragging their heels on native support. More than likely because the Mac userbase is their smallest percentage, then the Apple Silicon demo even smaller.
Why would they suport M1 when they need GPU that are not available on mac?
Hi James, would you consider to use this machine with Xgen? I´m 3D Realistic Character Modeller / Shader / Groom FX Artist , I have used Macs for a long time, currently using a PC Desktop ( very powerfull ) but I´m need mobility at the moment and will need a LapTop.
@betoprado3d664 That’s hard to for me to answer realistically, because I’ve never used Xgen or done any groom work etc. If the work you do is CPU based (modelling is I believe) then these laptops are a good all round consideration. If your work is GPU based, then I would consider a laptop with an Nvidia card in… but those PC laptops aren’t as mobile, as full power potential requires being plugged in to the mains. The main selling point I feel of these new Apple Silicon Macs is their all-round (you could say generalist) spec and appeal. That and the unified RAM, which is very fast and if you max that out, is very beneficial for the whole system. I said this to a friend, you always have a couple of weeks to make a return at full refund, so if you have the ability on a credit card, you could test one out and see if it fits your workflow. Hope that helped.
Thank you very much James.I really appreciate your attention. I will go for it !
I saw on the net somewhere that Maya was free for students. Is this true and how would I get it for my niece? Thanks so much for the help.
Hi Daniel, yes, if a student is in an institution which Autodesk recognises, then they give you an education license for Maya and their other software. Check out this link for more info: www.autodesk.com/education/edu-software/overview
If UA-cam strips the link out of the comment (they are known to do that sometimes), I would google ‘Maya education license’. That will get you the same results.
Hello, I'm a student who started studying MAYA program in Korea. I'm using MacBook and I don't know how to set project window, set project. And There are few people around me who use MacBooks, so no one gives me an answer
Hello. That’s annoying no one is helping you. To set a project, I would follow this link, it steps through how to do it. help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2022/ENU/?guid=GUID-D5CA162A-0956-49C6-9FAC-2F73DCF03409
if you still need help, FlippedNormal's video called "Introduction to Maya - 1 Hour Quick Start Guide" is a great start, this is how I learnt the basics, and I highly recommend it. They did use Windows for the tutorial, but I doubt it's that much different on Mac.
what are the recommendations if I am a 3D animator using a macbook pro m1?
@wildhanyogi5218 Could you give some more info on what recommendations you are looking for? What spec Mac to get? Or something different? What kind of 3d animation are you doing? Will you just be animating, or will you be modelling, texturing, rendering etc??
@@JamesBAnim Hello. I'm junior animator and l'm looking for a job in gamedev industry. So I'm looking for a mac for Maya+(Unreal or Unity). What spec do I need for comfortable work?
@@nsts_che M2 will release in January it gives 20 percent more from M1 but if you can't wait go for M1 max with 64 GB ram it will last longer without need to upgrade
@nsts_che. I would probably not get an M2-based Mac, yes they are faster and more powerful, but there are reports that they are not as efficient as the M1 Macs. So as the above comment suggests, I would save some money and get an M1 Pro or M1 Max-based MacBook with as much RAM and hard drive space as you can afford - the Apple Silicon Macs really do benefit from having a lot of RAM. I would possibly not get the 14in MacBook Pro too, there are reports it overheats and thermal throttles. I would also think about future use too, you mention Unreal, currently Unreal still runs through Rosetta, unless you want to compile the editor's native version from the source code. Lumen and Nanite in Unreal 5 also have limited or no Apple Silicon support. I am sure it's coming, but who knows when. Currently, Intel and AMD Windows computers will give you better support for Unreal. Unity has had native support for a while and seems to be running fine on Apple Silicon.
@@JamesBAnim any update on your thoughts about M2 MBPs?
its fine.... but graph editor is too lagy... gtx 840 mobile is handle better with the same amount of curves. i mean if we pan and zoom in graph editor and not move a animation curves. performance on rig is most important for me... and apple silicon is king... but. m1 and m1 pro, have same performance. i test a heavy rig in 2019 and 2024 maya. fps is the same in both models(m1 in air, and m1 pro in macbook pro) . where you need a better chip it's a texture, antialiasing, lightning in viewport. maybe in next versions of maya autodesk fix performance issue... but who knows, maybe not.
It's important to add that he has 64GB of RAM
You can't do anything he does if you don't have that. Which means you need to drop 5 grand on a laptop. And if you don't plan on making some of that investment back through work, it's absolutely not worth it.
Agreed. Having a lot of RAM does help. Purchasing this Mac was a work investment, I don't upgrade very often, so wanted to make sure it would last for as long as my last Mac. I think everyone's individual cases are different when it comes to this area, and agree with your point of, if its not for work, and you won't make money from this computer, yes, its worth considering other options.
There is no Arnold Maya GPU support option in any system of Mac, due to which after applying advanced Arnold Lens Effect and Denoiser Optics filter, render in Windows is done in 1 minute. And same whereas on Mac, a scene of 7 million poly can be rendered in 10 to 15 minutes. Mac machines are worst for 3D artists. You will get stuck going forward 100% in this.
Yeh I'm sure there are still compatibility issues, despite Maya 2024 being a universal app (it still uses OpenGl in places, which macOS doesn't like much now). But... as I mentioned in the video, Arnold isn't a render engine I use, and I think I mentioned, if rendering in general is your focus, a Windows based system is still a better option.
If you are a pro animator, using MAYA, why on earth would you be using a Mac?
People who loves macs dont need reasons
Animation in Maya is actually mostly a CPU-intensive task and the new Macs have great CPU's
I think there is a few interesting points here. I personally prefer using MacOS over Windows. But like I mentioned in the video, I use Windows on my work workstation, and that system is provided for me. That system is actually cloud based, so I stream it to my Mac using Teradici. This setup currently works for me, but that may change in the future and I am open to that. Which brings me to the next point, Animation is Animation is Animation. The skillset of being a 3D animator is in the keyframes and the graph editor. if you know that, you can change software and operating systems when needed. Yes a lot of studios use Maya. Disney does, but are now starting to use Presto, which Pixar created and use. Dreamworks use Premo, and a few smaller studios are starting to experiment with Blender. They are all just different ways of doing the same job.
please make a video on Zbrush crack software
on MacBook pro m1 max
Honestly- a pc laptop with nvidia is just way way better. I don’t care about Mac / PC thing but for Maya modelling and animation the Macs are just not as good in every way let alone not having gpu Arnold support. Why waste thousands on mac? Just doesn’t make sense
Has anyone figure out how to successfully flush the memory cash in 2020? It happens on both PC and Mac for me 🫠
Sadly, not yet. I’ve switched to using 2023 exclusively now. Guessing some bit of code not working, and Autodesk decided to not fix for that version.