There is a tutorial by Kevin Oxland that is great for using vertex paint in 3DS for terrain texturing. However, I never actually dl'ed the tutorial, i always just referenced his website and his site is down now. Does anyone actually have the pdf that they can share?
Here's a link on this forum from a while ago discussing the tut.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=62690
Best