Maya 4.5 to 4.0 translation:
Writen: March 30, 2003
Dru Abrams
dru@persistentvisions.com

The following are instructions for editing a Maya 4.5 file so that it may open with Maya 4.0.
Instructions are written for Win2000

1. Save your Maya 4.5 out in ascii format (.ma)
2. <RMB> + click on the resultant file and Select Open With:
3. Select Wordpad or notepad or another text editor from the list (or Browse to the location of notepad.exe)
4. The ascii file should look similar to this:

//Maya ASCII 4.5 scene
//Name: temp.ma
//Last modified: Sun, Mar 30, 2003 04:32:18 AM
requires maya "4.5";
currentUnit -l centimeter -a degree -t film;
fileInfo "application" "maya";
fileInfo "product" "Maya Unlimited 4.5";
fileInfo "version" "4.5";
fileInfo "cutIdentifier" "200208160001";
fileInfo "osv" "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2195)\n";
createNode transform -s -n "persp";

5. Change the first two instances Of "4.5" to "4.0"
6. Delete all statements that use the "fileInfo" node. This node is new to 4.5 and not compatable with 4.0

7. File>save.
8. Open the file in Maya 4.0

notes: You may need to toggle btwn viewport arrangements once or twice to get them to update after opening the scene. You're "top" cameraThis behavior is normal.

You will almost certainly get a start-up error. Look in the script editor for details. Likely your error will allude to plugins that are unsupported by Maya4.0.