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So I made this AK74 and it's roughly 9k polys
AK-74M image - InsanityPays - Mod DB

I'm not sure about BFs graphical limitations- and I'm not 100% sure if this will work out with my polycount, but I was thinking of using it as practice to put into BF2, anyway, I was able to convert it to max12 (everything worked fine), then I converted it to Max9 and i began to have a bit of a problem (though I expected worse).

My smoothing groups from maya's "normals" all disappeared
I'm a bit put off and don't feel like going through and redoing all of them.

Is there a better way to convert the model and or preserve my smoothing groups?

Thanks in advance- this forum has been a big help to me over the years (even more so than bfe forums)

model looks nice but most of your details should be made by normal maps.

and no smoothing groups are a necessary evil to be redone when downporting to max9. good luck

Echo331 wrote:My smoothing groups from maya's "normals" all disappeared
I'm a bit put off and don't feel like going through and redoing all of them.

Is there a better way to convert the model and or preserve my smoothing groups?

The difference in results between max 2012 and max 9 is because of some format change in the way the object's data is stored in max versions past max 9 (I have no idea about the specifics). Either way, that's resulted in shoddy backwards compatability, hence the errors you're getting when importing your max 12 export in max 9.

I've no experience with importing stuff from maya into max, but instead of putting it into max 12 first, I'd import it straight into max 9 from your maya files. Try exporting it to different formats, .fbx, .3ds or .obj I think are usually the best choice. When exporting .fbx, check what the latest .fbx version is that max 9 supports (FBX200608 iirc) and match it when exporting from maya, it might help reducing errors as well.

Despite that there may still be errors though, so be prepared to do some manual labour on it too.

Yeah .fbx was made by autdodesk with cross-compatability of their programs in mind so I would deff use that, .obj with the right settings (tick smoothing groups) also works. But yeah, dont use maya so hard to know.

Thanks for the help, I'll try it out and see what happens

FIXED: So I hit this same problem recently, and I kept trying to use obj converters (and even NIF converters) to fix it. As it turns out, there is a way to export into an fbx2006 which not only allowed me to keep my smoothing groups, but also my UVs and Texture paths. I was actually pretty surprised with how well it worked- I was expecting some kind of distortion in the model and there wasn't any visible.
Thanks for the help+patience guys

There is a way to export from Maya to Max and vice versa in .FBX without loosing anything, you just need to properly setup both exporter and importer in them. And make sure to check .fbx file format instead of "all files" when importing.

In case this doesn't help, update to latest fbx plugin both for Max and Maya, play with ticks you see in geometry section when importing\exporting.
Smoothing groups should always be on of course, iirc "unlock normal"(appears in latest fbx plughin) when exporting from Max should be on too.

Done this right now in Maya 2012 to Max 2012.

DankE_SPB wrote:
Done this right now in Maya 2012 to Max 2012.

I was converting directly from Maya 2012 to max9 which is why I was so surprised that I managed to get it working.