Often times I find that clients or co-workers are using older versions of Maya software which can create a headache at time of delivery. Here’s a quick tip to “downgrade” the Maya scene file.
For example: I have a Maya 2009 project that needs to work in Maya 2008. It uses nCloth which was available in 2008 so we are golden there.
- Save the Maya 2009 scene file as a .MA (Maya Ascii file format)
- Open it in any text editor and make sure it’s in plain text format.
- Find the lines of code that reference the Maya version number like this:
//Maya ASCII 2009 scene //Name: name of maya scene.ma //Last modified: Sat, Jan 16, 2010 1:12:40 PM //Codeset: UTF-8 requires maya "2009";
- And simply comment out the lines at the beginning of the file by adding two slashes “//”:
//Maya ASCII 2009 scene //Name: name of maya scene.ma //Last modified: Sat, Jan 16, 2010 1:12:40 PM //Codeset: UTF-8 //requires maya "2009";
There is a new method since the Maya 2008 release (I think that’s when they started this). If you click on File > Open Scene > Option Box, you’ll see a little checkbox to “ignore version“. Much easier this way.
NOTE: If you are using nodes that are exclusive to a new release, this will not work or at least the exclusive nodes will not import. That will require a little trial and error.
After Effects error: making file specification – no such volume (-35)
Have you come across this error before in After Effects?
Yeah, it sucks. Well, today was my first time experiencing this error. I was opening an archived After Effects project, and as soon as it started to open I saw the error message. I racked my brain trying to figure out why it was missing media because I was opening the project from a collected files folder. I kept saying to myself,”This is what collected files is for…I shouldn’t be missing ANYTHING!”. To top it all off, I had to continuously click the button as it tried to open the project because it was missing every single asset. Finally it opened in After Effects and all assets were missing so I relinked everything and saved the project. Fast forward 10 minutes later, AE crashed on me and I had to restart the program only to be welcomed by that annoying error message AGAIN! So I got smart and googled the error message.
Well it turns out that the HFS file system on Mac has a 32 character limit on any Volume Name. My external drive was exactly 32 characters. I simply closed After Effects, renamed the external drive by shaving off a few characters of the Volume Name and TADA…Everything was fine!
So lesson of the day: Don’t make your Volume Names longer than 32 characters!