okay well to make it so that the charecter does not fall through the ground you could make simple gravity like the tutorial game(a.ka. if object collides with your map, then dont let the object keep falling else move object down by 1) and texuring usually comes with the bsp level(check the tutorial, and to place object on the map you would load the object, load object "objectname.x",objnumber and then position the object, position object x,y,z i hope that helps
http://img96.exs.cx/img96/2382/sasa.gif
around here.. normal's just a setting on a hair dryer