That is, highlight/shadow texture and bumpmap made with a 3D program like Blender?
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/D...ual/Render/Bake

From my experience of 3D renders, I know that this is much like photoskinning, - that is, it looks much simpler than it really is and a first few attempts would probably be disastrous, but I'm frankly much more at home with a 3D renderer than with Photoshop, so I want to try this.

Did anyone try it before and how it turned out? Does anyone have any advice (esp. on a good starting point for a lighting rig?)