Mesh Groups

[bjennison]

I have a tree model in 3d StudioMax that has 10 groups ... 9 leaf clusters and the trunk.

I'm trying to get it down to two groups....all the leaf clusters and the trunk.
So I select all the leaf clusters, click Group under the Group menu and Max correctly shows that there are now just two groups.

I export to TVM and load the mesh in TV.  It still thinks there are 10! (Mesh.GetGroupCount)
What's the proper way to create/change "groups" in Max so that they translate properly to groups in TV?

Thanks.

[SylvainTV]

Actually TV groups are actually two things :
- they are used to handle different materials/textures for a same mesh (one group = a texture/material pair to make it simple).
- or they can be used to handle different objects from the modelers.

If you are using 6.5 : what you could try is the Mesh.CompactMesh function. It will preserve all the material/texture difference and reduce the number of groups if possible.

A small reminder for everybody : Its better to keep a small number of groups in a mesh, it's faster for rendering.

[xavram]

So there's a Mesh.CompactMesh....is there an Actor.CompactActor?  I can't seem to find that, wondering if its an oversight or a reason for it.