Tutorial
So Ive spent a shocking amount of time today trying to import some NURBS curves from Maya 2015 into Maya 2008.
I started a project on my work machine and want to continue at home with my older version. And of course, Maya is having none of it. I exported & imported the curves in every damn format that suposedly supports them to no avail. In desperation I tried Maya’s own .mb format knowing full well there is ZERO backward compatibility, and it didnt work.
Then a highly cynical thought occured. Is the reason for the import error actually due to an unrectifiable technical problem? Or a pathetic attempt to force people to fork out another couple of grand for latest version. Frankly the newer versions rarely have useful new features and generally are just cosmetic changes like a tweaked UI. Hence why I’ve stuck with 2008.
Should you ever want to do this slightly obscure thing, here’s how!
- Get Meshlab (Don’t worry, it’s free!)
- Have ready the vertex coloured model and a copy that has been UV mapped
- Import both into Meshlab
- Filters > Texture > Transfer Vertex Attributes to Texture (between 2 meshes)

- Select the vertex coloured model as the source and the UV mapped model as the Target. Set the resolution you want and check Overwrite Target Mesh Texture (Meshlab sometimes seems unhappy if you don’t)

- Click apply
After meshlab has complained a bit the texture file should appear in the same directory as the model file.
Done!



