I realize this must be a pretty simple procedure, but apparently I'm too stupid to find it. At least in the tutorials I've seen, there's no reference.

I suppose it would have to do with mapping with a matrix or something?

Any help greatly appreciated...

your first question should be something simple afaik. models should load in the exact position they were exported as long as jit.gl.model's @normalize attribute is set off (it defaults to on). toggle that and see if they show up correctly.

your second questions is not simple in the least. lighting and shading is a huge topic in real-time 3d. every 3d gl object in jitter has material properties that can be adjusted dynamically(mat_diffuse, mat_ambient, etc.). make sure @auto_material is off if you want to adjust these attributes.

however these material properties will only interact with the single default light in the scene. that light can be adjusted by the light_* attributes in jit.gl.render.

in order to have more control over the lighting, you will have to make use of the jit.gl.sketch objects exposure of raw opengl commands. this post contains an example patch that may help you out.

in a future version of jitter we hope to make this much easier.

and of course there's always shaders to handle lighting and material properties.