Oh herrow.
Just a head's up to let folks now I finally finished the 3DS Max 9/2008/2009 SMD importer plug-in that I seem to of been working on forever. I made an alpha release a while ago but this is the first one-point-oh release with some bug fixes and support for importing animations.
Major plus points over the existing MaxScript importer is that it imports the model as a continuous mesh so it doesn't require re-welding and smoothing. That said, it's not able to recreate smoothing groups but uses vertex smoothing. More details on that on my website. Theres also some nice features like making orphan bones dummies and "standing up" models originally from Maya.
Feedback/bug reports/suggestions welcome.