Ok something very simple must be screwed up. I can export my object from max, but when I create collision for it, max crashes. I created a test scenario with two boxes, and as soon as I export with collision, it crashes. Can someone with max 8 try to export this for me and see if you can get it working?

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/From_3dsmax_to_Oblivion_CS

You can download my test scene here: http://downloads.4drulers.com/temp/exporttest.max

Thanks in advance.

Well after reading countless bogus tutorials I finally found a video on youtube that shows how to get it working. Its quite easy if you do the right steps.

Hopefully this helps someone out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS1o6T0srsc

I just looked at the tutorial you linked to in your original post.....pretty out dated. But I can't hold that against it. It was probably for the first release that had the nifprops utility.
this though I was like lol wtf!- why is the tutorial telling you to add that upb extra data node> afaik it doesn't do anything, it's junk extra data.

The nifprops panel I think is pretty much dead, and tazpn might drop it eventually. the current way is as you did it, via bhkridgidbody modifier on the collision object, and using the the niftools helper bhkridgidbody.

imo saidenstorms collision tutorial is the best one currently. http://sites.google.com/site/saidenstorm/oblivionandfallout33dsmaxcollisiontutori
It has several nuggets of gold not even hinted at in any other collision tutorial.

You really have to be warry, the quality of information varies tremendously in tutorials, and the wiki. plus the tools change periodically, so methods, even if sound at some point, do change.
this kind of thing is way worse for fallout3 modders. There currently isn't even a good tutorial for exporting from max- except the niftools guide on using the dismemberment partition modifier. there are a lot of gottachas. loads of things are different....

Tell me about it. I mean I was doing the most simple thing, a static object with collision... yet if you don't have the bkhrigidbodymodiier on it and select export with collision that will crash max. It made me think that I was totally screwing up or I had improperly installed the tools.

Isn't saidenstorms mostly for characters?

not in his collision tutorial. it covers a standard setup for clutter like objects, demonstrating all the available collision types.

but just change rigidbody layer to ol_static, and motion system to fixed- its really easy to just look at a vanilla rigidbody and see what you need to change in there. pretty sure if you leave the rb helper options as default it'll export statics.

you might run into the max exporter not exporting correct transforms for primitive collision, apparently you untick allow transforms in the rigidbody helper.

I never use the rigid body helper when exporting statics. Only the rigid body modifier. Always exports correctly and saves some time.

cool didn't know that. .