lighting a model and texture bake [remove caching??]

okay its driving me a bit nuts but i have a human model i am trying to get some workable shadows on but im having problems getting things set correctly.

I am doing a texture bake (to create a skin for the model) and

1 the lights are either giving me to hard of a shadow or not enough contrast/the colors are being washed out

2 i can’t seem to get the baked texture to update when i rebake unless i change the material

without using Cycles does anybody have a suggestion on a light set to fix 1
and
how can i turn off whatever is caching the texture to fix 2

2 when baking, don’t set the texture into your material slot after unless you are satisfied - baking to a new image texture in the uv image editor works well when the image is not set in your material.

  1. if using AO, set more samples in the Gather tab to soften the shadows and smooth the usual noise from there

Maybe a screenshot or two could help us respond better though

in 1 my problem is i do a test don’t like it and then can’t retry without changing the material because the texture does not update
(i need a few more details then “if using AO”)

the blend file im using is linked due to the size

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5398233/skinshade3%20(1).blend

im trying to build a decent set of shadows (this is to be used for the MakeHuman Project)

well, to get a ‘decent’ output with baking, you will need to add subsurf modifier with a few divisions, and that way it will come out smooth. I opened the file, pressed bake, and the image in the uv image editor changed - so not sure if you desired that or not.

my problem is it does not work TWICE (so hit bake then change the lights and hit bake again I AM NOT SEEING IT UPDATE)

Guess you need to sort out who is what and which is where in that UV unwrap. Outer mesh right now is squeezed in some 70 pixels. That does not include face, neck with back of the head and palms. However these are obstructed by some cubes supposedly some bone markers or such.
Second is, “Bake” button has dropdown right beneath it. Which mode you have it when you hit the button?
Since when you bake that means different image from one which is assigned as a texture (otherwise there would be circular reference error) where exactly you do not see IT updating? UV editor window?
Anyhow, there is a file with some changes http://www.pasteall.org/blend/24283

Other than that - self intersecting meshes cause baking artifacts.