Thanks for the detailed explanation and quick response! I'm currently learning how to create normal maps in XSI. Once I figure it out and get it working with Away3D I'd be happy to post a demo.
Going through the Away3D LiveDocs I noticed that there is a Dot3MovieMaterial class. From what I understand this is an animated Flash movieclip that can be used as the normal map? If so, the potential here is amazing! Are there any examples of this online? How would you go about creating the normal map in the movieclip? Would it be a series of bitmaps exported from an external 3D program? Or would you be able to create it directly within Flash?