Hey there, remember me? ( GabrielKnight74
)
The .x format seems to be the format of choice for models. 3ds crashes violently for me, and I've noticed some bug reports regarding MD3 and MDL too ( they may have been fixed ) and X seems to support everything you really need now anyway.
The manual isn't bad, but it's woefully out of date now, so you'll want the online version for most things. Help is context sensitive so you can get a quick syntax check on any command. It's not too bad to pick up. I think I'd be going along ok if I had more time free. Hope you have your package waiting for you, and you have some fun with it.
Be sure to grab the patches for the compiler and the ide.