Eliminating faces with zero map area
 

Hi,
I'm trying to extract some faces from my poly model for texturing but after extracting them i go to combine them and Maya freezes?!?!?
Never had the prob before using extract/combine, so i tried the poly Cleanup tool to try and track down the possible cause, and from what i can see is theres some faces with a zero map area, as ticking this option causes a bunch of faces to merge to a central vertex.

Does this mean UV map?
I've tried conforming the normals which doesn't help.

and theres nothing in the documentation which helps explain what faces with zero map area means.

Could someone help clear my understanding on this?

sounds like the geometry is a bit of a mess. Your best bet would be just to remodel that bit. It would probably be alot quicker than the time trying to work out what is wrong.
As for the faces with zero map, it usually happens when extruding faces. Its faces that have no surface area. You can avoid this happening, by extruding in view besides the perspective view. Eg, if you want to extrude, go to the front view and extrude it. Maybe its a maya bug, but i know this aliminates it.

Thanks dude, :beer:

Managed to sort it eventually, just broke the selection down to smaller chunks and combined seperately, must of been some kind of system limitation that was freezing me.

Strange i should get areas with zero map area though, i gave up on extruding faces for that particular problem, i tend to prefer extruding edges now, i'll only use extrude face in the very early stages and for inlets or anywhere that i'll be shrinking the face from its original boundaries.