Opening scenes from newer versions of Maya

Introduction

Sometimes you need to load a scene that was saved in a newer version of Maya than the version you're working with. The file structure of Maya is such that success isn't guaranteed; older versions may not know how to handle certain new features a may therefore unable to open scenes from newer versions altogether.

Before you continue

Please note that there are no guarantees that you will be able to successfully open scenes from newer versions of Maya. You could however try. The methods explained on this page are intended to be used as a 'last resort'. They are in no way part of a recommended workflow.

Maya 8.5 and higher

In Maya 8.5 and higher, you can use the option box for Open Scene:

Check Ignore version and proceed to load your Maya scene. There is no guarantee it will succeed. If there are version dependencies that cannot be solved, you won't be able to open the scene directly.

Maya versions before 8.5

You need to save the Maya file as Maya ASCII (.ma) in the newer version of Maya first.

Open this file in a text editor, such as: Wordpad, Crimson editor, etc. You'll see something like this:

//Maya ASCII 8.0 scene
//Name: test.ma
//Last modified: Mon, Jun 04, 2007 10:15:00 AM
requires maya "8.0";
requires "Mayatomr" "8.0.2.2m - 3.5.1.2 ";
currentUnit -l centimeter -a degree -t film;
fileInfo "application" "maya";
fileInfo "product" "Maya Unlimited 8.0";
fileInfo "version" "8.0";
fileInfo "cutIdentifier" "200607192324-680053";
fileInfo "osv" "Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)\n";
......

Proceed as follows:

1. Remove the fileInfo lines.
2. Replace the occurrences of 'Maya 8.0' with 'Maya 7.0' (or other applicable version numbers).
3. Remove the line, if present, 'requires "Mayatomr" "8.0.2.2m - 3.5.1.2 ";' (or similar)

Save the text file (still as .ma) and open it in your version of Maya. Warnings or errors may appear. Bear in mind that your file may not be fully functional.