I would suggest you check out the eat3d.com Next-Gen Texturing tutorial. Even though it's not in maya... I've seen a couple of people who have made threads about doing it in maya instead of 3ds max. I think that those tutorials and maybe checking out something the "sticky" threads in Technical Talk should answer your…
The first question there is a big topic and one that requires a lot tutorials and a lot of trial and error to fully learn the process. There are many decent tutorials around some you can find here http://www.learning-maya.com As for your second question, Normal maps and bump maps are not the same, but they both work in…