Maya 5 to 4.5 translation:
Revised: June 21, 2003
Dru Abrams
dru@persistentvisions.com

The following are instructions for editing a Maya 5.0 file so that it may open with Maya 4.5.
Instructions are written for Win2000

Notes before you begin:

1. Maya's pluggin's are API specific and generally are unsupported from version to version. If you are using any 3rd party pluggins with 5.0 there is a good chance that those aspects of your scene will not function as expected within 4.0

2. Whenever possible delete history prior to exporting.

Step by step instructions:

1. Save your Maya 5.0 out in ascii format (.ma)
2. <RMB> + click on the resultant file and Select Open With:
3. Select Wordpad or notepad or another text editor from the list (or Browse to the location of notepad.exe)
4. The ascii file should look similar to this:

//Maya ASCII 5.0 scene
//Name: temp.ma
//Last modified: Fri, Jun 19, 2003 04:20:00 PM
requires maya "5.0";
currentUnit -l centimeter -a degree -t film;
fileInfo "application" "maya";
fileInfo "product" "Maya Unlimited 5.0";
fileInfo "version" "5.0";
fileInfo "cutIdentifier" "200208160001";
fileInfo "osv" "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2195)\n";
createNode transform -s -n "persp";

5. Change the first two instances Of "5.0" to "4.5"
6. Delete all statements that use the "fileInfo" node. "fileInfo provides a mechanism for keeping information related to a Maya scene file" (Maya 5 documentation). In most cases this node is unnecessary.

7. File>save. And remember to save as a .ma, not a .txt
8. Open the file in Maya 4.5

 

*After opening your scene in 4.5 look in the script editor for details. If any errors were encountered on open, they will be listed.