Loading materials from .ASE

Hi, I’m having trouble in loading the material properties of .ASE meshes :

  1. what’s *MATERIAL_TRANSPARENCY and how should I calculate the alpha component of my materials ?
  2. what are *MATERIAL_SHINE and
    *MATERIAL_SHINESTRENGTH ? How should I calculate the GL_SHININESS ?
  3. which texture should I map : the one specified in *MAP_DIFFUSE , or the one specified in *MTLID ?

Thanks for help !