So I have this weird problem in 3DS Max 2012. I've been working on fixing the Sonic and the Secret Rings party mode models for the past couple of months, and just as I thought I was at the last step, I ran into a problem. The majority of the groups have the same name as well as the same material, making it weird to export them. So no big deal, I just renamed the objects. But a lot of objects are weirdly by themselves, i.e parts of the leg are in one object, parts of the leg are in another object. You see, I'm not the smartest at 3DS Max at all, so I had to hit google to find ways to merge these groups without breaking them. I found one method, selecting the objects then collapsing the mesh. This method worked in every way except one, it completely ruined the look of the object.
It went from looking like this (Don't mind my Gamma/LUT settings, I have them set high for rendering):
To this:
It's exactly how I want it, all the different segments of the shoe are in one object. The only problem is how it looks. I don't know if this is the only method to combine objects, but if there is another method that doesn't break it or if there is a way to fix this I would like some help. I'm definitely not an expert.