XSI import questions (materials etc)

I'm hoping someone can help me out with a few questions about importing from XSI 7.5. I'm a developer and not a modeller, but can put together simple low-poly textured meshes to server as placeholders while I write the code.

1. Can someone give me a few pointers on how I should be using materials, both in XSI and Unity? I must be using some default material in XSI because I have textured my meshes and exported them via Cakewalk. The lighting does look wring in Unity though.

2. Related, but I don't understand how to name my materials, where to put them in the assets folder, or how the Material Naming part of the Import Settings works.

Any tips appreciated and yes, I'm working though various search hits as I write this.