Max: Smoothing groups

Spur

Hi guys. First let me start out that I am a total noob in Max. Anyway I'm building some assets for a game in Maya then importing to Max, as FBX, in order to import the assets into the game. Once I import into Max, the only thing I do is set up the game specific shaders then export. After getting the first asset into the game I noticed that there were some shading artifacts. Going back into Max I realized that the smoothing groups were completely jacked up. Prior to importing into Max I set up all of my hard/soft edges in Maya as I thought that would eliminate any need to screw with smoothing groups in Max. Evidently I was wrong or I'm doing something wrong. Is that just the nature of the beast and I will have to tweak my smoothing groups in Max or is there something I can do in Maya to prevent having to tweak the smoothing groups in Max?


Here's an image of how the item is ending up. Max smoothing groups in blue.

Mark Dygert

There is a hard/soft edge script for max up on scriptspot.com it kind of works like Maya does on the surface but actually manipulates the smoothing groups.

But actually its probably better to understand the smoothing groups first.

If you want a hard edge, polys on either side need to be in separate smoothing groups.

There are 32 groups but that doesn't mean every piece needs its own group.
If the pieces don't share a common edge you can and them to previously used groups.

Spur

Thanks so much for the reply! I managed to get everything straightened out by applying an auto smooth at 25, then manually tweaking a few areas. I was mainly disappointed that the information didn't carry over between Maya and Max, for whatever reason, and is just something I have to re-do. The initial assets are fairly simple, so not a big deal but they will get progressively more involved.