1. Can Max bake lightmap to 1 file from many separated objects? 2. Can Max take into consideration smoothing groups during baking? 3. If not 'Render to texture' from 3d max - what program do you use to baking lightmap?
1) Yes. You can either: - Set up each object individually in RTT then select them all and click render, it will batch process all the objects. Unfortunately they will all go into separate files. - So I suggest you create a copy, merge all the objects into one, and render it once. Then delete the copy and apply the material…