I'm not sure how many long time Maya users have noticed, but it appears Autodesk has quietly discontinued Maya 1.0 file support in Maya 2008. (This could include later versions as well, but 1.0 file support is all I've noticed so far.)
Granted, this may not seem like a big deal, after all that was a long time ago, and who still is using Maya 1.0 files anyway?
While consider that all of the original work you did back then is now in danger of becoming inaccessible. Just like if you'd stuck it on a CD-R and found that the dye used to store your data had faded into unreadability. Do you remember that thing you created years ago? Wouldn't be just perfect for this scene you're working on today? Ooops, to bad! All those man hours down the drain, thanks to some bureaucrat far removed form production reality.
It's good practice is to keep backups. We've heard it a million times. This means that the Maya is not a viable format of archiving your work. Even todays new users will eventually run into this problem.
Even if it's a big deal to provide file format support for older formats of the SAME package, it's just plain professional.
So in keeping with the purpose of this forum, I would like to request full past file format compatibility.
If you're in the same boat, don't uninstall Maya 8.0 from your machine. You now need it to update those files you made from all the way back in 1999. (Yup, there was 3D back then.)
-Aka
PS; There is much eloquent rant about on the same subject in "In the Beginning was the Command Line" by Neal Stephenson.
wow .. I can't of anything I did in Maya 1 that I'd still need to use or didn't export to a OBJ or some other more useable format. But if I did I have an install of Maya 3 on a SGI that may still boot even though it's been seven years since the last time it was turned on.. lol
Did you try checking "ignore version" in the options of the Open menu?
Also I've been keeping important backed up files on harddrives.. imo a backup means you have more than one copy. So you have one copy on a harddrive and a backup copy on DVDR or CDR.
honestly, do you really have so many stuff made 10 years ago on computers as powerful than a mobile phone with a software who completely change, That you really need without restarting from scratch with a new modern way ??
If it is yes, well you are few in the wold. I am agree with joojaa, there is a time where you have to go forward and suppress some old code lines.
I guess you can open all you archives from maya 1 inside your maya 8 and do new backup of them in this format. I have old cd archives that i found unreadable after few years, so even archives are good to rearchive somtimes.
QUOTE(loganb @ 12/04/08, 03:37 PM) [snapback]296414[/snapback] "ignore version"???? is this some new Maya 2008 feature? or was that a joke?
Actually I believe it was introduced in Maya 8.5.
I don't think this is as uncommon as you think.
For example even if I could open an after effects file from 1993 I doubt any of the plugins I might have used would still be compatible with the settings from then.
My bigger concern is that while I can excuse developers not maintaining infinite backwards compatibility that they are not expunging problems that annoy me on a daily basis.
QUOTE(gmask @ 12/05/08, 02:56 AM) [snapback]296416[/snapback] My bigger concern is that while I can excuse developers not maintaining infinite backwards compatibility that they are not expunging problems that annoy me on a daily basis.
Well i have worked on both sides of this fence so I have some insight on this. Usually this is what happens: each user submits their top 1 annoyance. And nobody has the same annoyance so what you end up with is 10,000 or so annoyances. So then you start to prioritize those anoyances somehow. One of the fist questions the dev team asks is: Is there a wrokaround? if there is the annoyance gets a second class citicenship. Usually annoyances have.
This is offcource no excuse but imagine it form teh firms point of view. Fixing annoyances does not look good on the whats new list. I mean what would a release list looking like this say to you:
fixed a thing that should allready have worked out for you
fixed a second thing that should allready have worked out for you
fixed a third thing that should allready have worked out for you
Now while it may make you upgrade, your kind of already paid for. New users dont appreciate stuff like this. So its a conflict between business people and the coder. Quite frequently the same annoyances are on the developpers list of things he hates, certainly often the grunt level developper. But sometimes he is strictly forbidden to do this as its not business justifiable.
My personal number one annoyance is this:
when maya trasfers mesh data theres no way to limit its propagation over the dg network, so theres no way to locally speed up the network without actually duplicating it and then redoind it with a smaller set of material. This works. BUT alas i want maya t actually use the actual whats shown list fo my viewport.
Note its NOTHING anybody else has requested reecently, but you all would benefit form this with faster view port feedbacks.