I have a model that in Max has multiple textures and multiple Material IDs. I am told that UE3 will handle this with little to no problem. What I can't seem to figure out is how to associate Materials made in UE3 to the material Id's specified in Max. Won't I have to rig up a separate material for each ID in UE3? A shove…
I beg to differ, if the name of the Materials are not the same as those exported from Max, then Unreal will assign a "None" material to them and you will have to manually assign them to the mesh. (Unless that is a "feature" our software engineers implemented in our Unreal build, but I don't think so.)
What Marcan said, but you don't need to worry about names; just make sure both materials are actually applied to the mesh as that's all unreal really looks for.
Both just need to have the same name in Max and Unreal. When you import the model in Unreal after you've exported it, just make sure you've fully loaded your package containing your materials or Unreal will not find them.
The only way I've seen it work flawlessly is to build a multi sub-object material and name them appropriately before exporting. Build the multi sub from scratch. Chances are you've merged and detached objects and the multi sub is probably containing errors from all that merging.