3DS Max Perspective Match - especially with no true verticals and extreme lens choice

vfxart

I've got a few readable images that were taken from pretty standard angles, 3/4 below, 3/4 above, 3/4 rear, etc. so none are orthographic and the lens choices for them are pretty crappy, there's a bit of distortion. It's making some element placement tricky. Add in that the asset itself has no true verticals anywhere on it (stupid spaceship) and... well yeah.

So I've been giving Max's Perspective Match a go, hoping to nail some major block shapes and then think ok, everything else has to fit within 'this' region. But it just can not quite get the distortion. I can't give it more than two planes in each attempt (again, no true verticals on the asset), likely part of the problem, but it's so off as to be a huge frustration.

Also, when I place objects that I know the exact dimensions of as a starter/reference (simple cylinders), others that I drop in (boxes) don't fall where they should relative to the cylinders. Things may match in the persp view, but in ortho the real proportions and placement relationships are comically off.

Any thoughts on getting the most out of it? Hints on how to think relative to the origin, account for distortion, etc? I'm in Max 2023. Not a heavy Max user, just nice to have a 5th (6th?) modeling package down, or close to ;-) YT vids have been pretty standard stuff. A lot have it easy with visible ground planes, that sort of thing, so no deeper info. But I do all of the steps I think- grab file, set dimensions, set overdraw, place known object, set reference obj, adjust perspective lines, use 2d track/pan...

???

Thanks.