Softimage SDK Programmer's Guide > Customizing with the SDK > Self-Installing Plug-ins >

# Deploying Self-Installing Plug-ins

Deploying plug-ins is simple: just put your plug-in in the Application\Plugins folder of one of these locations:

- A workgroup

- An add-on directory in a workgroup

- The User location

Softimage automatically scans these locations at startup, and loads any self-installing plug-ins it finds.

The Factory location is not a recommended location for custom plug-ins.

At start up, Softimage scans the workgroup, user, and factory locations for self-isntalling plug-ins. As long as you use the Application\Plugins directory (or one of its subdirectories) in the user, workgroup, or factory locations, you do not have to explicitly tell Softimage to read those plug-in files.

Tip

The C++ examples demonstrate how convenient it is to locate the source code of a self-installed plug-in, shader or custom operator directly inside the Addon location of the workgroup where the compiled .dll or .so will be located. For example, the example has its source code in a cppsrc directory and its .vcproj/GN/makefile are set to output the .dll/.so output directly into the Application\Plugins directory.