As I tought this was not due to an away3D error, but in your 3ds scene they are no light that can be understood as light when displayed in away3D.
I don't really know about the default light setting in 3ds and the way it's translated to away when parsed,if none is displayed in the original scene (anyone ??), but well here you have none, and you need one : no light == black object !!!!! So this comes from the file, and you should add a light in it, or the shader won't be enlighted when parsed in away3D. But what you really should do is to add a light in your scene( like I did in your file, take a look at it...) but more than that you can set a new material to each object (as Mesh) contained in the max3ds.handle. This way you will have more control on your object (as long as it's a simple slot... ;-)) Or create an image texture to wrap your object in the 3ds file (I joined an example). well that's all I can say about your file now !
