Exporting a simple mesh

Hello,
I´ve been programming a game with the .mesh files provided by ogre package. Now I finished the basics of the game and I want to insert my own models (an artist made them to me. I don´t know anything about artwork) in .3ds.
Well, when I export a simple ship it generates lots of .mesh files. I know that I can load the .osm file into ogre with a plugin, but then I´ll have a problem when setting the physics engine (I´m using newton with ogrenewt), because it will get each mesh separated.
So, what´s the best way to do it? Should I group all the meshes in 3d Studio into a unique one, so then it can generate only one mesh to me?
Or is there another way?

Sorry, but as I said, I´m just coding, so I don´t understand anything about modeling =\

Thanks

You will need to attach each separated object to a single mesh

Search this forum, there are several threads with this information

Yo,
I searched in 3ds Max properties and I found the function to attach it.
Now it did work.

I´ll try to create a whole scene now. This plugin looks great.

Thank you!