The 4.5 scene has to be saved as an ascii file ..



then



delete the lines from the header that start with requires or fileInfo

I've tried that everyway i know how..theres basically 4 places where it says "4.5" i've changed them all to 4.0..is that what you mean? Because its not working.. anymore ideas..the first time it mentions 4.5 its just the title..so im not sure its important..but im running both side by side and have tried all the combos i can..it either gives me an error message..or the screen sorta blinks like it loaded something..but nothing is there..

any further advice would be lovely.

thanks

just delete those lines alltogther that begin with "requires" and "fileinfo"

If you take a 4.0 file, save it out as ascii, then take your 4.5 ascii file, open then both up in Wordpad or whatever then just copy paste the header from 4.0 into the 4.5 file.

I have also found that you will get errors in 4.0 if any of the objects in your 4.5 scene has history.



Make sure you delete all history before trying to transfer the files between versions.

i have tryed this i have 5 and 4.5 i have commented those lines and i can open file ma with 4.5

requires maya "4.0";

currentUnit -l centimeter -a degree -t film;

//fileInfo "application" "maya";

//fileInfo "product" "Maya Unlimited 5.0";

//fileInfo "version" "5.0";

//fileInfo "cutIdentifier" "200304040010";

//fileInfo "osv" "Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)n";

okay, you can be a little more daring here:



the others are right, save as ascii, you can change the "required"- line to whatever version you want.

when you load it again, in the scriptEditor turn "echo all commands" on, and compare which items/lineNumbers cause problems/errors/halts.

remove those from the ascii without reluctance: -unless you have used features native to the higher version of maya, - you can erase a lot of those without causing damage! you basically want to achieve maya loading the file without any warnings or errors, cause in that case you probably inherit some damaged parts without noticing it even.



come to think of it: try exporting the parts you desperately want to keep and which you can't replace (like sometimes backgrounds were modelled seperately in files you might still have in 4.0, or so, while animated characters might not etc)

export as ascii of course.



save anim clip onto a dummy null and export that file as ascii, if it's only about the animation that you would loose.



make the exported ascii as small as possible, cause editing [censored] out of ascii's is tedious and frustrating work, but you already know that, right?



HIH

s.

Export out and then import back again? maybe export out as .obj?

Sorry for this question, but im new, and id like to know where you change those lines xcomb?

I was pretty pissed today, after I spent so much time on a project in 5.0, and couldnt open it in 4.5 in school.



and, from what you wrote, I only need to change "requires maya "4.0"; " to "requires maya "4.5";" right?

You could use Deep Exploration (www.righthemisphere.com). You should be able to do importing and exporting using this...

Dont change delete!

Could someone explain this step by step. I am like a total noob and don't know anything about this stuff.

In reply to:

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The 4.5 scene has to be saved as an ascii file ..



then



delete the lines from the header that start with requires or fileInfo

---

Also... I heard you can use somekind of file converter on here too... but I don't know how to get it to work either.

modifying headers is just as simple as opening the ma file in any text editor editting it and then saving out.

The converter is a command line (or command prompt) tool, command line is like a old dos prmpt except theres nothing old with it. IN all actuality whatever you do in windows you execute commands like this anyway, without you knowing offcourse. That is to say it totaly possible make it behave in windows rightclick menu in some special way.

Note that if you cant use a command line then you REALY cant say yoiu can use your computer to the full either!

The command line can be found in windows under start-> accessories -> command prompt. (there is a small sematic distinction between prmpta and line, a command line is what you type and prompt is the tool that accepst the type).

This is a ultrapoverfull tool taht unfortunately 95% of people have never ever heard of. se typing is a powerful way of conweying a message as opposed to cliking,

Say you wanted to rename and convert buch of files you could use imgcvt to do it (installs with maya). suppose you have a folder c:temp with files myfile.0001.iff to myfile.0999.iff.

Youd type into the command line each line separately

would porduce (sorry for the link! the uube eingene thinks @ is allways a link wich is not true, also it cant insert a empy line aftera code tag either!):

a buch of files named myNewFileNamingConvetion1.tif to myNewFileNamingConvetion999.tif. note without padding in names too.

now what this does it takes the first name in the code and passes it to the command line interpretter, wich checks if its a internal command like c: in wich case it does the appropriate thing if not it seaches the path environment variable directories in order for a .cmd .bat .exe... extended files for a fime named like that and sends the mumbojumbo after that to the file along with insrucvtions whare you happen to be.

No how does this relate to the version cvonverter ? Well i juts told you how it realy works. YOu should be able to figure it out but just in case you dont.

So to use the conevrter copy it to some of the floders that included in your path variable such as the maya bin directory.

Then envoke the command like the example of the utility suggests in the driectory where you are.

Wellcome to the wonderful world of actualy using computers.

*changed and added wording to make myself more explicit because the poster below didnt follow my bad*

I'm assuming I could do the same thing with moveing a Maya 6.0 to maya5.01 file.



Just edit the ascii file and I should be good right.



Also I recently saw something on highend about some had some utility or plugin that converts maya s to any version.



I can't seem to find it, this post I saw was only about a couple weeks back.

The lates t discussion was on how to use that utility yes.



Its jut that i took the appproach of teaching something on the way. Read the thread!