Hi Vizwhiz
Thanks for the suggestion.
Beat you to it.
I built the terrain in Sketchup for the Sandbox utility to produce the variances in datum and construcct the buildings in AutoCAD for the joy of working with Solids. Importing the SU terrain into Max, I then used FLM to import the buildings.
Working in an architectural practice, it's odds on that the beggars will change the design of the proposal before it's all over, so the link to the original models in AutoCAD is important. I can remember a similar kind of odd behaviour in a model some years ago in Max but can't for the life of me remember what the root cause was or what I did to get around the problem. I would usually just group all the components of the building in Max to force them to do my rotational bidding but in this instance the grouping facility was not available, presumably due to the open link to AutoCAD.
All is well as the buildings are orientated correctly before FLM'd into Max but I'd dearly like to know what the cause of the annoying behaviour is.
Again, thanks for taking the time to lend a helping suggestion or two. It's what makes this site so useful.
Patrick