As soon as i fix my main computer power unit issue tomorrow (it's R.I.P lol,or at least, i hope it's just the power unit...
), i'll do a rendering to texture in 3Dsmax to illustrate occlusion mapping and shows how you make some. I'll also make an illustration on how normal maps are generated in 3DSmax via another rendering to texture function, because much people still thinks their details are all first "hand" drawn in photoshop like you would make a skin and then using a converter normal map filter plugin like the nvidia one. They first make a hi-polygon model (great number of polygons so it is very hires), then they would make an exact copy of the object,but with desired polygons number so your computer can handle it in real time rendering. After that, you simply move them in 3dsmax so they are exactly on the same place (i.e they overlap) and 3dsmax will compare and then interpolate a normal map so you get some close details of the hi-poly model on the low-poly using the normal map.
I think, this could help to make this thread a valuable resource for people who want to understand/experiment whilst not knowing much things about how 3D models and such are done in the gaming industry