Caution! Before Merging an Object!

While making some of the scenes (so far) for my final animation, I have encountered one annoying problem that is now solved. I will try to explain myself as good as I can but it is a bit tricky to explain and would be easier to show.

The problem was caused only when I was attempting a certain type of movement for my spaceships. This movement is simply to PITCH SIDEWAYS (in order to avoid a tree for example). And this type of movement only gave me trouble when mixed with a PATH CONSTRAINT-based animation.

So the problem is that, after MERGING the X-Wing into the scene and applied the pitch movement during the path constraint movement, the pitch of the X-Wing from 0 to 90 degrees was done in a very weird way that has something to do with the WORLD COORDINATES AGAINST THE LOCAL COORDINATES (like in UDK). So the initial and final positions were right BUT THE TRANSITION was very wrong.

The Solution is to create the animation in a different .max file (knowing in advance in which frames you would like the X-Wing to start moving) and save that file to MERGE the X-Wing with the animation already within. When I did this, after adding a path constraint, the movement was done properly.

This was specially helpful when I had to do the cockpit scene inside the X-Wing. Not only the pitch animation came with the merged object but also the camera that was going to be used in the scene.