Ronald, It is not a business decision to boost sales. The reasons are purely technical.
Loading newer scenes in older software means the older software had to be designed that way so it can handle things like newer operators or data types that don't exist in the old system. What is the result of running an undefined operator? What about a new geometry or type? How do you preserve the new data and allow modifications on top? It is a difficult and error-prone problem. In fact, the development cost is so high that I don't know of any complex software product that supports forwards compatibility. Quite frankly we would rather spend our time enhancing the product and adding new features. The reason why you can many times load newer scenes in older versions is because 1) the rate of adding new features slows down in a mature product and 2) you may not be using any of the newer features in that particular scene. The problem is it would hard to determine whether a given file uses any newer features before loading it. We also have no automated way of tracking all the persistence changes between releases so we simply try to avoid changing persistence in SAP releases but not for major versions. The reason we block loading of newer scenes because 1) we don't want you to accidentally destroy an asset by loading/saving it in an older version and 2) we want to prevent scene corruption/crashes caused by loading unrecognized operators/data. The backdoor Maya ascii workaround is perfect IMHO because it prevents casual corruption but allows a (potentially unsafe) workaround for power users. -- Brent -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Toonafish Sent: 17 April 2012 00:35 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: 2013 save scene = no load in 2012? Maya scenes are not backward compatible as well, but the funny thing is that if you save a scene as Maya ascii, you can change the version number in a text editor, 9 out of 10 times the scene loads without any problem in any previous version. I suspect its more a business decision to boost sales then anything else. I bet if you knew what to change in a SI 2013 scene, it would load just fine in 2012. -Ronald On 4/13/2012 6:56 PM, Stephen Blair wrote: > Yes, I think that was one exception > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric > Cosky > Sent: April-13-12 12:49 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: 2013 save scene = no load in 2012? > > I am sure you are right. For some reason I thought file formats didn't > necessarily change every release but I think I was mixing up service > packs/SAP with annual releases. For instance I can load SI2012SAP > scenes in SI2012SP1. > > Sorry for the confusion - > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen > Blair > Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 9:39 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: 2013 save scene = no load in 2012? > > This is expected with every new version. > Do you usually load scenes into older versions? I'm surprised it > works, it never does for me. > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric > Cosky > Sent: April-13-12 12:33 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: 2013 save scene = no load in 2012? > > Just a heads up in case it affects other people, I was just trying to > check some differences in RTShader behavior in SI2012SAP (and there > are differences fwiw) and was greeted with the following error when > trying to load the scene: > > --------------------------- > Autodesk(r) Softimage(r) > --------------------------- > You are trying to load a scene with an unsupported version. > This software supports scenes from version 108 to 1000 > > Actual scene version: 1000 > Please try to load it from version: 1100 > > > --------------------------- > OK > --------------------------- > > I don't think I used any new features in the scene, but thought maybe > I did without realizing it so I tried again saving an empty scene in > 2013 and it wouldn't load in 2012SAP either. Not sure if this is > expected with every new version of SI but I never noticed this > happening before so I thought I'd mention it in case it helps someone who > needs to remain compatible. > > >
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