Doesn't anyone else have trouble exporting dts files?

I am new to torque and still in the first couple of weeks but I am having a heck of a time getting art into torque. I have some shapes that I bought in 3ds and max format that I have been trying to export to dts format for over a week. I have jumped through every hoop I can and am just about ready to jump off the roof. If anyone else has insight, or if anyone wants to make some money converting my files, please let me know.

First, I have a Mac and was using Cheetah for Unity. Of course Cheetah does not play with dts, but I can open the art in cheetah and it is beautiful. So I have been using Blender and can now get the files open and make them look decent in blender, even though the objects never face the same way as the original. But I CANNOT get the blender dts exporter to do anything right. If I use quick export, it writes a dts file that is a blank gray square in TGB. If I use the regular exporter, it bombs.

I bought milkshape, and bought a small PC just to run it, but it too makes a gray block on export, when I can get it to open a 3ds or other file.

I have tried houdini but it is a resource pig (my new little PC hates it but runs everything else okay) and I don't think I want to spend thousands to register it since it cannot even open a 3ds file so again, I have to go through 2 programs.

I have read tutorials on the web and seem to follow along okay but the real things just don't work. Unless I create all the art from scratch in milkshape, it appears that I will never get these files over to dts to even try out the graphics of TGB.

Surely there is a straightforward art pipeline from 3ds to dts. Blender is okay, but the exporter just has me mystified. Houdini cannot open 3ds?

Am I really the only person who is having trouble getting assets into this dts format? I have spent hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours and still have nothing to show for this. I am close to the point of returning the PC, erasing torque, and settling for unity which I do not think will do as good of a job with 2d games on a slower machine.

I cannot post the files here, they are copyrighted and I licensed them from another artist but they are SIMPLE, low poly little airplanes models that should not have any problems.

/end rant

Please, if anyone else feels my pain, point me in the right direction, please. Or if you want to convert them for a small fee, I give up; I'll pay.

Thanks,
HF