Need Help with SCS Materials in Blender

[noone1520]

I recently dove into blender and started modeling truck accessories without any experience or know-how. Surprisingly, I've learned some stuff and my models have turned out well enough for me to want them in my game. I'm at the stage where I have barebones models without materials or textures or anything.

What I made is a new hood, fenders and chassis parts for the W900. My problem is: I need to learn exactly how SCS does the ambient occlusion baking, materials, textures and normal maps, all that stuff, so that my model will match the stock cab. I'd like to know exactly how the normal default hood model was taken from a barebones model to having all the material properties it has. I need all the steps, SCS's exact recipe for applying all this stuff to models. I've watched the old SCS tutorials on how to make accessories, but since they're so old and blender has changed, their usefulness has seemingly diminished quite a bit.

I'd also like to know how to take a normal model, made with quads, and get it ready for the unwrapping and materials stage. Is it okay to use shade auto smooth? How do I triangulate the mesh? Is is okay to just Ctrl+T in edit mode, or do I have to use a triangulate modifier? Is the edge split modifier a necessary step?

If anyone could help me with this, I would be grateful.