Save it as a .ma, maya changed the way that it's binary files .mb were saved.
I cant open it to save it as a Maya 2015 file. I am not at home right now and they only have Maya 2015 /: Thats why I am asking if someone else could do it for me
If you only need geometry, export to obj or fbx. I noticed .ma isn't backward compatible between 2018 and 2016.5 but haven't needed to dig in that hard.
Backwards compatibility has always been an issue, and it's a big reason I'm still using 2016.5 for freelance and such. Having the newest version always gives issues until the rest of the world gets around to upgrading too. Exporting files as OBJ is usually a safe bet, if it's just a mesh. But anything else becomes a hoop to jump through.
This is an old school hack.... Maya ascii files (.ma) have a header in them that defines what version of maya they are for. Save your .ma file as a copy, then right click and open it in a text editor like Notepad++. You'll see at the top of the file information like:
//Maya ASCII 2016 scene
//Name: MyMayaFile_Work01.ma
//Last modified: Sat, Oct 01, 2016 11:11:23 PM
//Codeset: 1252
requires maya "2016";
currentUnit -l inch -a degree -t film;
fileInfo "application" "maya";
fileInfo "product" "Maya 2016";
fileInfo "version" "2016";
fileInfo "cutIdentifier" "201603180400-990260";
fileInfo "osv" "Microsoft Windows 8 Business Edition, 64-bit (Build 9200)\n";
I haven't tried this recently, but in the old days you could simply comment out (put two forward slashes // ) in front of the file requirement data. Like this:
//Maya ASCII 2016 scene
//Name: MyMayaFile_Work01.ma
//Last modified: Sat, Oct 01, 2016 11:11:23 PM
//Codeset: 1252
//requires maya "2016";
currentUnit -l inch -a degree -t film;
fileInfo "application" "maya";
//fileInfo "product" "Maya 2016";
//fileInfo "version" "2016";
//fileInfo "cutIdentifier" "201603180400-990260";
Save the file, and then try opening in your older version of maya. Of course if you have components only compatible with 2016 in your file, then you'll see some warnings and errors on load. However you might be able to sneak this one past the version troll.
You can also try changing the 2016 information to whatever your maya version is, if commenting it out does not work. Best of luck!
Replies
Edit: More information here: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018/ENU/Maya-WhatsNewPR/files/GUID-418024BF-0054-40BE-B334-BB0920D02101-htm.html
Thats why I am asking if someone else could do it for me
Maya ascii files (.ma) have a header in them that defines what version of maya they are for. Save your .ma file as a copy, then right click and open it in a text editor like Notepad++. You'll see at the top of the file information like:
I haven't tried this recently, but in the old days you could simply comment out (put two forward slashes // ) in front of the file requirement data.
Like this:
Save the file, and then try opening in your older version of maya.
Of course if you have components only compatible with 2016 in your file, then you'll see some warnings and errors on load. However you might be able to sneak this one past the version troll.
You can also try changing the 2016 information to whatever your maya version is, if commenting it out does not work.
Best of luck!