if you animate in 3ds MAX, export to .3ds format, import in blender, and export to .mdl7 from Blender (using the .mdl7 plugin) will it have skins, bones, and/or animation? I'd like to know because when I try to use the milkshape method the animations are different when I import the file in MS3D.

Hmmm not really sure if they even fixed the 3ds import for blender... Least mines still not working. So your likley to have to get another app such as wings3d import 3ds to wings export as obj then import obj into blender for the final export to mdl.

lol boy that gets me tired just saying it. As far as having the textures or not still... well not really sure but the last import export operation I did I beleive the UV map was fine just had to reload the image into med.

oh, well forget it then. I guess I'll just have to get Max2Mdl