What is the best thing to do, should I texture my objects in the 3D software I am using such as 3DS or should I texture them in Unreal Engine? I’m a little confused that’s all, do more detailed objects need texturing in the 3D software for example if I wanted to add some detail to an object for example a football with the markings on it? Thanks for your time 
Basically you have to texture all models in your 3d programm otherwise the textures wont show up correctly (e.g when you create a cube in blender and just export it, then in the UE4 you wont see any texture at all) -> UV mapping
If by “texture” you mean UV unwrapping, such that your object has a good coverage of UV coordinates, then the best (only) place for that is in your authoring tool (such as 3ds .) If you also want to use baked lighting for your object, you need to make sure there’s a second UV channel that is uniquely mapped – stays within 0 … 1 (no wrapping) and no two triangles overlap.
If by “texture” you mean apply materials that work well in the engine (with effects, etc,) then you build materials in the UE editor, and can apply them to the object either in the editor, or using scripting. If your object uses multiple sub materials, then you need to apply multiple materials.
The FBX importer will build simple materials for you if your object has diffuse, bump, and/or specular color maps; these will be treated as diffuse, normal, and gloss maps and a simple material built for you. This may be good enough for many cases, but you will usually have to open this up and modify it further to get the level of control you might need. However, even if your object does not have materials in the export, you can build and apply materials in the editor, as long as you did a good job of UV mapping / unwrapping in the original art tool.
Complete nube jumping in here. I started just this week. Here’s my problem: If I apply a material to an object included with UE4, everything looks fine. However, if I import a FBX model into the scene as a static mesh and try to apply a material, all it does is change color and show a few polygon lines. Are you saying that if I use a FBX model (the letter “A” I created in Maya) I have to create my own material in UE4 and that the included materials will not work?
BTW, isn’t a bit unusual for a product like UE4 to not have a text creation tool of some sort?
TIA
Jerry
You will have to unwrap your model in your 3d program (search for e.g maya uv mapping -> then import it into the UE4 -> assign the material
Now it should display correctly.