ummm... light maps, i'm not sure what those are. Is it a low poly game thing, like baking lights?

my workflow... well, if i was animating a character (lets say a robot walking around on a table.) I would film a move around a desk. then matchmove the plate.
using a grey ball and chrome ball for reference i would create lights to match the lighting in the scene. i would then create some proxy geometry of the table and whatever else was needed. then i would import my rigged character and animate the walk.
Next i would work on shading and texturing. once i was happy with that i would render various passes and try to comp the robot onto the backplate adding things like dof, motion blur, pixelate bits and bobs etc etc.
i would do it in mental ray... i've never used vray but i guess it would all be the same process but with different buttons.