Licensing
Learning mode, activating a license key, machines, subscriptions and free render nodes.
GroomLab is one free download. Without a license key it runs in Learning mode; a license key from the store unlocks it for commercial work.
Learning mode
Learning mode is GroomLab with every feature, free, for non-commercial use: learning, personal projects, trying it out. There is no strand limit and no time limit. The differences:
- A watermark. The Maya viewport (OpenGL and DirectX 11 alike), the app's viewport, its renders and screenshots, and baked card textures (faintly) carry GroomLab Learning · non-commercial.
- No exports. Alembic, USD, Unreal and Unity grooms, glTF and FBX cards, the scales and rachis meshes don't export. Asking for one opens the License window with a Buy a License button.
- Saved grooms are marked non-commercial. A
.groomfile saved in Learning mode carries"license": "learning", and so does a groom node in a saved Maya scene. No GroomLab host exports a marked groom, not even the free command line tools.
What always works, licensed or not: opening, grooming, rendering in Arnold (including .ass
export and the procedural) and saving. GroomLab never holds your work hostage: a lapsed license
only brings Learning mode back.
Activate a license
Buy a key
Buy GroomLab Individual ($30 a year). The key comes in the receipt email and stays under My Orders.
Open the License window
In Maya: GroomLab > License.... In the GroomLab app: Help > License....
Paste the key and click Activate
The watermark goes and the exports turn on at once. Activating needs the internet once.
One activation covers every GroomLab host on the machine (Maya, the app): they share one license
file per user, %APPDATA%\GroomLab\license.json on Windows (~/Library/Application Support/GroomLab
on macOS, ~/.config/GroomLab on Linux). The GROOMLAB_LICENSE_FILE environment variable points
GroomLab at another location.
Your existing grooms
Grooms you saved in Learning mode stay marked until you save them again with a license: open the
scene or .groom file and save it, and the mark is gone.
Machines
A key covers 2 machines. To move to a new one, open the License window on the old machine and click Deactivate This Machine: that frees the activation, and the old machine goes back to Learning mode.
No longer have access to the old machine (lost, wiped or replaced)? Email support@getgroomlab.com with your license key and the machine's name if you know it, and we'll free the activation for you.
Subscriptions and going offline
GroomLab Individual is a yearly subscription. GroomLab checks the license with the store about every 30 days, in the background, when Maya or the app starts with its window. If the check can't reach the store, nothing changes for another 30 days; after that GroomLab falls back to Learning mode until it can check again.
When the subscription ends (or is cancelled), the key expires at the end of the paid period and GroomLab returns to Learning mode at its next check. Renew it and the next check (or Check Now in the License window) restores it, on the same key.
Render nodes and pipelines: free
Rendering never needs a license, and nothing on a render node goes online:
- The Arnold procedural and Arnold renders from Maya batch.
- groomlab-cli, the C API and the Python module (
groomlab_core) evaluate any groom without a license. They respect the Learning mark: they render and evaluate a marked groom but don't export it (the CLI'seval -ostops with exit code 3; bridges askgl_session_check_export).
So a farm renders and caches licensed grooms freely, with no license server and no per-node seats.
Privacy
Activating and checking send the license key and the machine's name to Lemon Squeezy's license API, nothing else: no usage data, no files.