@Aymar de Bois Mauri,
Thank you, I think you have succinctly explained why what I was trying
to do was so hard: it is, in fact, impossible. In a mesh file you have one
large vertex array but (take armored_sergeants for example) 22 face groups
which index into that one vertex array. In Milkshape you have the same
large single vertex array, a single large face array, and then an auxilliary
set of 22 "groups" that index into the large face array to get the grouping
structure. What I'm hearing is that in Max I need 22 little vertex arrays
accompanied by 22 little face arrays indexing into their separate dedicated
vertex arrays to form the same groups. In other words 22 separate named
meshes.
Yikes, this is going to be an index housekeeping nightmare. Importing seems
straightforward because I know how to grab vertices by index and simply put
them into the 22 new little arrays, perhaps with duplication if the face
groups share a vertex. Exporting is the nightmare. I have to go through each
group in order, pull out the vertices and put into a single large array. Reindex
the faces to point to the same vertex which now has a different index
in the large array, AND remove duplicate entries, all the while keeping the
indexing straight.
I'm going to crawl back under my rock and think
about this for a while.
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