3ds does not support skeletal animation. There's nothing you can do to make it work in 3ds. Same applies to .x as far as Blitz is concerned. B3d is the one and only choice for skeletal animation.
Now as for b3d not working, that depends on a few things. How did you export it and how is the model rigged to the biped? B3d Pipeline only supports Skin, not Physique, and is very fussy about things like having a vertex which isn't assigned or having a bone with no vertices assigned to it, and a bunch of other stuff.
I use Ultimate Unwrap as a mid point. I export from 3dsMax using the U3d exporter, then convert to b3d in UU. The advantage of this is that the U3d exporter is very forgiving and also supports Physique as well as Skin.
Can't help any more without more information.
Now as for b3d not working, that depends on a few things. How did you export it and how is the model rigged to the biped? B3d Pipeline only supports Skin, not Physique, and is very fussy about things like having a vertex which isn't assigned or having a bone with no vertices assigned to it, and a bunch of other stuff.
I use Ultimate Unwrap as a mid point. I export from 3dsMax using the U3d exporter, then convert to b3d in UU. The advantage of this is that the U3d exporter is very forgiving and also supports Physique as well as Skin.
Can't help any more without more information.