Maya help

[Traggey]

If you don't have a high poly of your object to bake an AO from you can download and try out KNALD whilst it's still in beta, bakes great LP AO maps.

I'm just trying to let wood look like wood a bit more. I thought AO did that, right?
And thanks, I'll try that

No, AO = Ambient Occlusion, is a black and white texture rendered out which contains shadows, you usually overlay this ontop of your diffuse texture to give it more depth.