"Save Scene As..." should open to the folder where the file is currently located

[Anonymous]

Right now "Save Scene As..." opens to the last folder that you were in for whatever reason. So if you import a model into a lighting scene, then go to "Save Scene As..." it opens the model's folder instead of the lighting scene's folder. This is super annoying. When working with several artists and several assets simultaneously on different jobs, files are accidentally getting saved all over the place, and when people look to find the latest version, it may or may not be located where it's supposed to be.

[Anonymous]

 The current functionality is super, super annoying and completely breaks the whole project space paradigm. Please revert this to the previous, intuitive behavior where Save As would default to the (correct) SCENES folder. I've lost work because of this new behavior, where a file has accidentally been saved to some arbitrary location and I have not realized, then opened up the most recent version inside the scenes folder later, thinking it was most recent version. There's no scenario where this is useful or helps workflow. And, even though I am now aware of this problem I am STILL accidentally doing it because it's so unintuitive and breaks the way Maya has always worked. I've been using Maya since 1999.

[damaggio]

Sadly only 10 votes so far, should be 50 by now.

At this pace this ain't gonna change.

[Anonymous]

It was only posted a month ago. I'm spreading the word 😉

[damaggio]

great, thanks steve.

[joie]

This is super annoying. Not even when you "save as..." because then you are able to shoose your directory. It is even worse, it happens when you change your dialog to another folder for whatever reason and then just "save" your scene. It saves to that another folder and doesn't overwrite the current file!, amazing.

[Anonymous]

This is been causing me a LOT of trouble...please Autodesk don't make silly changes like this without check with users.

[Anonymous]

Same thing again today -- came into work, opened the most recent file in the Scenes folder on my current project to find that it was missing a bunch of work I knew I did yesterday afternoon. Because I'd subsequently opened a whole bunch of other scene files after working on this, there was no record in my Recent Files list as to where I might have saved, so I literally had to go hunting through folders looking for the "lost" version. Fortunately I found it -- in the source images folder, which seems to be the most common place files are getting saved by accident. But really, this situation is just absolutely ludicrous. 

[trevor.adams]

Setting this one to "Under Review".

[aerys.bat]

I think a good idea and perhaps a more general solution would be for Maya to show a "recent folders" list in every file dialog. This would include the folder where the current scene is located, but also solve the problem for opening and saving other sorts of files that may be located at similar locations on disk.

[Anonymous]

As others have pointed out, this is already possible using bookmarks. The issue is not with navigation, the issue is with this previously not having been necessary and that the whole point of the project space is to preclude it being necessary. Having to choose a folder to save a scene file in with every Save As serves no purpose, and only slows down workflow and introduces potential for mistakes. Yet AGAIN today I have had to play detective to find a file I saved on Friday to the wrong location, this time having to go back to our RENDER FARM to identify the file path as I had absolutely no idea where it had gone. Autodesk needs to simply revert to the intuitive and logical way that Maya performed Save As previously -- into the scenes folder of the currently set project.

[zewt]

"Recent folders" and bookmarks aren't great solutions, since you still have to manually navigate all the time.

The Replace Reference dialog has the same problem: it should start in the directory containing the existing reference, not the last directory you saw in a previous file window.

The file browse button in the AE does this well.  If you click the browse button on a file node to select a different image, it starts in the directory containing the previous file.

[Anonymous]

Another CG supe chiming in here. I hate this default behavior so much. It's insultingly stupid. I don't care how the "open" or "import/export" windows function. "Save As" should default to the location the file currently lives, like literally every other software (Nuke, Houdini, C4D, Photoshop, ZBrush) does.

[Anonymous]

As a followup to this, and in particular to the idea of using bookmarks, we have just upgraded to Windows 10 and Microsoft in all its wisdom has now removed the Favorites feature, which I previously leaned on heavily to keep track of the many projects I'm expected to dive in and out of at a moment's notice, sometimes weeks or months after I was last working on them. There is now the far inferior "Quick Access" feature, which has some of the functionality of Favorites, but also has the annoying habit of adding recently visited folders to this list as well. Point being, this is yet another hindrance to quickly setting projects and finding folders. All the more reason that Maya's project space is invaluable, and the program needs to revert to its previous behavior.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and here's another GREAT piece of news related to this. Not only has Microsoft removed the Favorites capability, but if you now rename things you have put into "Quick Access", it's watered down replacement, IT RENAMES THE SOURCE FOLDER AS WELL.

So, the only option to store links to Maya projects here is to have a whole bunch of items called "MAYA". These cannot be renamed without also renaming the project folder. Unbelievable.

There is a registry edit possible, apparently, to restore Favorites. I am waiting on our IT dept to look into this.

[Anonymous]

Wow, it's like Autodesk and Microsoft teamed up to pull a terrible prank on Maya customers. Our pipeline guy created a whole new UI for saving our stuff, and it's incomparably more intuitive than the Autodesk/Microsoft current system. The guy learned to code less than a year ago, and only does it on down time when it's slow. Why is it that a total amateur's tools are better than the system implemented by a team who's job is to simply make the software better? How hard is it to simply point "save as" to the current folder? C'mon already, enough of this sick joke.

[Anonymous]

Where are you located? I think a lot of these problems have to do with American corporate culture. Aloof and incompetent management, no accountability or consequences for bad work, misplaced over self-confidence. Everybody talks, nobody listens. Maya was a MUCH better product when it was owned by a Canadian company.

[Anonymous]

I'm in Chicago, the management where I'm freelancing right now is good. I think it's just a company to company thing, some are better, some are worse. In terms of this save as thing, I believe Autodesk was trying to make it easier for when you're importing and referencing things to not have to keep navigating to your last folder. But they didn't realize how much of a pain in the A it was gonna be for people just trying to mindlessly save a new version of their scene. The thing that drives me nuts is that they say that's how it's meant to work, and the proper workaround is to use windows shortcuts instead of admitting that it sucks, they didn't intend that, and make a simple fix. It's not like we're asking them for something complicated here.

[Anonymous]

I was talking about the corporate culture at large, rich companies like Microsoft and Autodesk. I've worked places like this and the arrogance and lack of organization and communication skills I've seen, coupled with water-cooler laziness because nobody is held accountable for ****ty work, means that everything takes 10 times longer and 10 attempts before anything gets done right. With something as complex as Maya, and this kind of culture, it's no surprise that things don't get fixed, or things that don't need fixing get broken, and (despite what they say on this forum) nobody really listens to the user base. You're right about AD not owning this problem and instead saying it's "working as it should". But what's truly shocking is that by saying that, they are admitting they don't even understand how their own software is intended to be used. The ENTIRE purpose of the project space paradigm is to organize assets according to type, with specific menus going to the folders those assets are in. This new behavior makes this design completely redundant.

[blinnlambert]

I'm chiming in to agree about this asinine new "feature". Why is Maya trying to make me save to a folder different than the current file's location?! Why can't I change this option in my preferences? This has definitely thrown a wrench into my entire workflow since I am constantly importing and referencing assets from different directories. 

[johnkeates2865]

I saw a bug report which seemed to say that this has been fixed. I just tested it and it looks to me like it has.

Can anyone else confirm that this is fixed in 2019.1?