An OgreMax Model is a collection of objects, stored in its own file. It's similar to a scene, except it doesn't contain environmental information such as shadow settings.
The primary benefit of having models is that their definitions are loaded once in an application and can be instantiated multiple times.
Any object or hierarchy of objects can be turned into a model.
To indicate that an object should be exported as a model, the root object should have the Export to .model File setting checked on the General page of the Object Settings dialog. This indicates that the object and its children should be exported to a separate model file. If a model name is not defined, the root object's name will be used.
To create an instance of a model in a scene, create any kind of object (even a complete copy of the original model), set its Type setting to 'Model Instance' in the Object Settings dialog, and set the name of the model in the Model Instance page.
If using an model instance with multiple children, you can have the exporter ignore the children by enabling the Ignore Children setting on the Object Settings General Settings page.