Supported file formats

The following lists general file format support. There may be slight differences in support between platforms and depending on variations in file formats. For example, TIFF is a very loosely defined format. It may be possible to save TIFF files in another program that Maya cannot open.

Translators

Translators are plug-ins that let you open and/or save data in a given file format. You must have the proper translator plug-in loaded to be able to open, save, import, or export data in the format.

Use the Plug-in Manager to load or unload translators.

Data Import	Mac OS X	Linux
Maya ASCII
Maya Binary
MEL
FBX
DXF
OBJ
IGES
StudioTools^® wire
AIFF
image
mov (ascii motion)
VRML2	*	*
EPS
Adobe^® Illustrator^®
OpenFlight^®
STL

Data Export	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux
Maya Ascii
Maya Binary
MEL
FBX
DXF
OBJ
IGES
StudioTools wire
mov (ascii motion)
VRML2
GE2
RTG
mental ray^®
RIB
Open Inventor2
OpenFlight^®

* via wrl2ma

Image Input	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux
Maya IFF
AVI
Apple^® Quicktime^®
GIF
Softimage^®
Wavefront RLA
BMP
TIFF
SGI^® RGB
Alias Pix
JPEG
EPS
Cineon
Quantel
Targa
MacPaint
Adobe^® PhotoShop^®
PNG
QuickDraw

Image Output	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux
Maya IFF
AVI
Apple^® Quicktime^®
GIF
Softimage^®
Wavefront RLA
BMP
TIFF
SGI^® RGB
Alias Pix
JPEG
EPS
Cineon
Quantel
Targa
MacPaint
Adobe^® PhotoShop^®
PNG
QuickDraw
DDS

NoteThe mayaAscii and mayaBinary file formats are the only ones that preserve all the information contained within your scene. Setting the output format for an export using the Export Options box will change your default export format for the current and subsequent export operations. If you set the output format to something other then mayaAscii or mayaBinary and export using that format and then quit without saving the entire file then you can lose data.

Always check the export type in the export file browser to ensure you are writing the file using the expected file format.