right now 3DS is the only program Aftershock has an exporter for so that's the only program to do the final steps with. editing the mesh polys with maya is fine, you just have to do all of the texturing with 3DS 7. They don't have the exporter for 8 yet.
Get 3DS max 7 and learn how to UVW map. You can read
this tutorial. The pics have been lost to the AOL internets god, but there might be some usefull info for ya.
Otherwise google uvw map tutorials for 3DS. I found one with a shark that helped me out a lot.
*found it.
Here's the link.As it stands now, fighter needs to have only one image for the entire texture job. It's kinda hard at first but once you do it more and more it gets easier.