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.

So! I exported the file as Maya Ascii and opened it in notepad++. And there at the top was the version number… Could it be that easy? I changed the version date to 2008, tried an import AND… it worked………….

Success

Seriously, screw you autodesk.