Select all of the polygons, then scroll down the panel until you find the AUTOSMOOF section, clear all, then autosmooth. That panel is there for you to clear all smoothing and select faces, ticking in a number at a time. Autosmooth doesn't always work, probably won't completely solve this, for example, but you might be able to with the right threshold.
Generally, place a smooth group for every spot that goes to a hard edge. Playing with autosmooth will 1: show you how to use it 2: help you to think out manual smoothing groups when things get complex.
Very good, thanks. Getting ahead of myself, I've read conflicting opinions about smoothing groups and baking normal maps. is it advisable to have your uv seams where you have changes in smoothing groups, or is it better to have one smoothing group? or does it depend?
If you're going to have breaks in smoothing it's generally wise to place them along UV seams. The reason for this is because a smoothing break and UV seams, actually break the geometry, doubling the amount of verts along that break. This happens on export/import into most engines.
new to max. how does one get rid of smoothing errors such as the triangles on the barrel in max?
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Generally, place a smooth group for every spot that goes to a hard edge. Playing with autosmooth will 1: show you how to use it 2: help you to think out manual smoothing groups when things get complex.
If you can place two breaks in the same place it helps keep the number of doubled up verts down to a minimum.
Taken from Eric Chadwick's site http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/provost/byf2.html'
This isn't a hard and fast rule but something to keep in mind when laying out seams.