HoMM VII Haven Units – Haven faction units from the seventh installment of Heroes of Might and Magic.

I figured out the issue with the smoothing. It was getting messed up during the SMD import into Max, and at that stage, it just needed to be redone (there's a function in the mask that automatically adjusts the smoothing groups; it works reasonably well, although not always perfectly, but the main thing is that it can be done in two clicks).
I'll think about how to optimize the process and try to write a tutorial.