@ patorak:  those will be great starting points for any newbie except in small's case, English is not her first language. 

@ small: if you are going to export a an entire figure to obj, make sure the entire figure is checked off in the hierarchy editor with universe unchecked.  Export the figure and uncheck 'As Morph Target (no world transformation). 
Question: what exactly would you like to doe with these obj files?