New to Ogre; a Max & materials related question

[Michael_GR]

Hello all - new to this board and to Ogre in General.

I'm a graphic artist by training, and I'm very experienced with 3D Studio Max, but I know nothing about realtime shaders. The company I work for has started a project that uses Ogre.
I've been trying to understand how to use anything more complicated than a diffuse map on my models, and from what I read on the Wiki (here: http://grotsnik.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Materials) , it involves pasting about four pages worth of code. Other texture uses - such as opacity maps, reflection maps, or specular level maps, are also possible, but again require some manual text editing.
I tried using Ofusion but their material was not intuitive and still required a lot of complicated over-my-head fiddling to create the effects I wanted.

Since we are going to be using Ogre in a large project for which many objects will be built, and writing custom materials for each of them seems like a time-consuming job, I was wondering whether an easier (for a graphic artist, that is) solution exists. The objects in question are static, no character animation needed.

Is there a 3D studio max exporter that can read max materials and export a large subset of Max's material properties into a material file?
Otherwise, what is usually done when large amounts of objects with advanced material properties are to be created?

Should we maybe use some sort of intermediate file format and write our own converter to convert to mesh and create the material files? Or Can Ogre be made to read other formats and create the materials at runtime?

As you can see it's all new to me, so forgive me for asking so many question that may show little understanding. I'd be glad to hear any input you have.

Michael

[IFASS]

You really should look into oFusion:
http://ofusion.inocentric.com/index.html

ogre subforum:
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2addons/viewforum.php?f=5

[sazlin]

i would also like to know how .material files could be generated best for complex 3ds max materials, w/o oFusion. is there some script somewhere that we are missing?