Why are my files suddenly broken?

[Anonymous]

So I haven't used Maya for about 5-6 days I think and I was opening it up now to adjust some animations for export and I come across the strangest thing. The first clue that something was wrong was when trying to open the .mlt files it didn't show the Maya icon. I've had this happen before and usually the sight that has greeted me was nothing short of utter destruction.

I feel like I've gotten off easy this time, the key problem seems to be that in literally every animation I've made, the UVs have decided to move and animate with the character. Here's a screenshot to illustrate:

Now I sure hope this is a global setting thing, this is literally months of work with several characters and hundreds of animations.

[sean.heasley · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous 

If there's a lot of history on the models that could have lead to some corrutption.

Otherwise it may be Maya itself which would mean you would need to perform a clean uninstall/reinstall of Maya.

When you get a chance, can you please zip and attach the scene file here or via dropbox/google drive or another file sharing program so I can take a look at it? If the file is confidential or under NDA please send it to me in a private message instead of posting it here.

[Anonymous]

Hi Shaun,

I always delete history before binding a mesh, and find it strange if history would suddenly become a problem considering the amount of time I have spent creating and editing these files with no issues.

However, I did a full reinstall already and luckily the Mudbox files (where I texture the characters) were unaffected by any issues. This allowed me to delete the non-deformer history (which completely messed up the UVs), but since Mudbox can import the correct UVs and their positions this saved the character files and they can now animate without dragging the UV maps with them.

I should also note that this particular issue is very easy to recognize as it causes Maya to slow to a crawl. After fixing up the files Maya now runs properly and everything is as it should be.

I suppose I was a bit hasty posting this until I had run through the solutions list, but I had a moment of panic there (deadlines and all). 

Thank you for your response Shaun, I very much appreciate it.