NIF smoothing

[Wallingtons]

Hello, Hello!

 

First off, I'm using 3ds Max 2010 32-bit. (I have other versions, blender etc. but this seemed most supported for NIF stuff)

 

I'm having a little trouble with the import of NIF models into 3ds Max, everything works fine but the mesh comes out looking unsmoothed / low-poly. [see the first picture I've attached].

 

I loaded a body mesh (NIF format) from a 3rd party plugin, onto a skeleton file and it looked smooth as it should. When I imported the hands and feet from the same plugin, they look all polygonal like the face picture I attached.

 

Using the NIF import's "Auto-smooth mesh" tick box, or 3ds Max's smoothing groups, Mesh Smooth, Turbosmooth, Tessellate etc. yield inconsistent results and they don't line up with the hands, feet and torso of the body mesh. I've also tried stuff like exporting from NIFskope as a collada.

 

It seems like a smoothing groups problem, as the mesh appears to have similar topology in NIF skope, but Max is dealing with the interpolation differently.

 

So I'm wondering if this is something I can fix in NIF Skope, or if this is something to do with 3ds Max and the import process.

 

Any insight really appreciated!