I've been experimenting with the Path Deform Binding modifier in Max but it won't allow me to collapse to editable poly. Have tried putting an edit poly modifier on top, but still no joy. Any ideas? It seems that it cannae be done cap'n.
-Sometimes- it will collapse if you do some funky "collapse to" or "collapse all" business. I've also had some success adding an edit poly modifier and then collapsing. But it still seems pretty random whether it will work or not. Snapshot is the way to go.
I don't think you can collapse worldspace modifiers in the typical way. I usually just duplicate, create a morpher and morph to the original. You'll probably have to move the duplicate to the origin and correct the scale though. [edit: oh yeah, haha I guess that's smarter to just export+import]