Help with runitme objects and plaintext mesh files

HI everyone. I am trying to build a project that allows the user to build their own 3d models and textures to add to the game. I have got a basic skeleton script for this but I am having trouble deciding on a suitable format for the meshes. The wavefront .obj format seems to have what I want ie. plaintext 3d object format but there are further issues. I am currently using maya and when I export a shape using .obj in maya I get two files: a .obj file that simply has the name of the other file in it and nothing else, and an mtl file that always reads

newmtl initialShadingGroup

illum

Kd 0.50 0.50 0.50

Ka 0.00 0.00 0.00

Tf 1.00 1.00 1.00

Ni 1.00

no matter what shape I export. Maya also fails to reimport these files but I gather from other sources that maya just doesn't import most file types.

My questions are as follows: Is wavefront obj the best file format for my purposes? Is there a way to get maya to export these properly or should I use a different modelling program.

This question was also posted in the unity forum http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/73546-help-with-runtime-objects-and-.obj-files

Thanks to the nice chaps at #bay12games irc channel, I have solved my problem, and am now posting this in case others have similar questions. It turns out that .obj is the right file format for my purposes, although apparently a text version of .fbx also exists. The reason maya wasn't exporting it correctly was that maya was creating nurbs curves by default and .obj doesn't support nurbs. Converting nurbs to polygons enabled me to export the file as desired.