well you are going to get all kinds of import issues with max because of its modifier stack. The cushions on the couch for instant are most likely and instance copy with a mirror modifier. These do not get translated properly when going to maya.

You can try max -> fbx 0-> maya but first collapse the max modifier stack and only transfer geometry and textures. You also try max -> obj -> maya, but that is even less stable.

The problem is max is clearly more dominant in the game industry and home enthusiast market and that home market is where a lot of the free turbo squid stuff comes. I see mostly 3ds, obj, lw, and even modo.

You also do not see much native mb and ma files because alias the company that made maya created obj as a 3d interchange format and so many maya scenes are save out in obj. The funny (and sad) part is maya has the most unreliable obj reader/writer.


Your vase issue is that the model has been triangulated. I can tell because the hud shows the poly count as being equal to the triangle count. You are seeing the edges because their normals are most likely hard along that line of tris.

basically the bad news is max -> maya is a big can of worms and there is no magic bullet. There are lots of expensive programs that claim to convert them seamlessly but I have yet to see one that really does.