New Tutorial! Maya File Formats

This tutorial covers the differences between Maya binary and Maya Ascii file formats, also, advantages and disadvantages of the two file formats.
http://www.3dtutorialzone.com/tutorial?id=103
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New Tutorial: Projects in Maya

This tutorial covers how to create,edit, and use projects in Maya.
http://www.3dtutorialzone.com/tutorial?id=61
Read More...

maya blog tutorial - Importing .OBJ Files

Step one - Go to window>settings/preferences>plug-in manager.

Step two - Roll down the list and check load and auto load for the plug-in objExport.mll.

Step three - Go to file>import...; set the file of type: to OBJ(*.obj)and locate your OBJ file.

old version of Maya to open my new version's file

This is a commonly asked question on most forums; "How can I get my old version of Maya to open my new version's file?" Here's how you do this: in your new version, save the file as a .ma file. Now open up your file explorer. Find the file, right click on it and hit edit. This should open Notepad or Wordpad. Edit the top couple of lines.

requires maya ”your new version”;
currentUnit -l centimeter -a degree -t film;
fileInfo “application” “maya”;
fileInfo “product” “your new version”;
fileInfo “version” “your new version”;

to

requires maya “old file version”;
currentUnit -l centimeter -a degree -t film;
fileInfo “application” “maya”;
fileInfo “version” “Your old file version”;


Now save the file and you should be able to open the file in your old version of Maya. This does have limitations. This doesn't help if your new version has special features of plug-ins that the old version didn't have.

Maya tip - Don't save your renderings as Jpegs.

JPEGs can be a great file format when space is limited, but there is a lot of date loss in the process. This can be fixed be adjusting the quality setting of a JEPG compressor. Sadly in Maya you can't edit this option. So, by default, it'll save it as a low quality JPEG. Try saving it as a Maya IFF instead.