Are you viewing the maps in Toolbag with the respective tangent basis? Have you tried converting object space maps to tangent maps.. I bake object space maps and then bake out the tangent space maps with handplane3d. I havent found any aberrations with it.
Do they really need to be once piece of geometry? What is the object? How is it made, because complex objects usually have a lot of individual pieces, you can use that to your advantage when you're modeling. Is this the low, mid or high poly? Are you baking?
Directional light was quick to add via menu, creat, light, then apply to an object. In a similar way I added a few camera angles. Menu, create, add camera, "pick parent" (right menu that comes up) click on the object you wish it to follow.
Have you tried selecting an object, and using Orbit Selected? There's also sub-object mode. http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/index.html?url=files/GUID-6DA741AB-9941-4957-903A-4B998C1C65E7.htm,topicNumber=d30e560456
Have you tested the script for weighted normals? It averages your normals to the surface thy are applied to, it does a good job for simpler objects so since you want lower res meshes it might work for you. But it converts your object in editable mesh.
There is no built-in instancing feature per se, however, if you save the object you want to instance as an isolated FBX/OBJ, and then import that, you can duplicate that object and then if you update the file on disk it should auto-reload for all copies.
I have version 5.0.3 and I got this message every time I select an object. // Warning: file: C:/Users/xxx/Documents/maya/2018/prefs/scripts/dp_MaterialManager.mel line 3419: Unknown object type: aiShadowCatcher //
I could be wrong, but those are all separate objects, aren't they? If so, when you picked your source object, you just picked a part of it and not the whole thing. Try combining your high poly and then repick your meshes.
That top nob needs to be thicker. Also like others have said, separate the objects. Keeping everything one object is something you want to do once you have sub-d down (And its not required most of the time).
Interestingly, baking in Object space as opposed to Tangent yields sensible results. So there are clearly okay normals to work with, at any rate. But! Converting the object space normals INTO tangent space results in.... the same bad normal bake as I started with.