Hi, I have had two problems when importing a 3ds file, firstly it only appears flatshaded and remains that way even when rendered (both in blender internel and in yafray) the second problem is that when i try to make a hair partical system for it, the same systems i use for other shapes don’t work the same, the halos apear far to big and the hair legnth is far too small for it’s life compared to the same system on other models and when i increase it to the same legnth as it should be by increasing the partical life it makes the program extremely slow and any attempt at rendering causes my computer to crash. Someone somewhere must know the ansewr!
Remember to study some of the basics of an application. It’s not that hard,
if you just read a bit in the first chapters of the manual to begin with.
Flat shading, or solid shading I presume it is, is very easily fixed. Look for a
button called “set smooth” under the modeling buttons.
For hair, look in the manual.
http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Static_Particles_(Hair)
The manual is actually quite useful! 
With the rest, I’m kinda puzzled. Hope it helped somehow…
//Mathias