Things that are Frowned Upon?

Scizz

When building environments for your portfolio, or just any non-work related pieces.(Or maybe even work related) Would you say it's frowned upon to use pre-made vegetation, water shaders, rocks etc that come with the engine? (CryEngine, UDK, etc)

Sometimes I feel that someone who makes an amazing looking environment, and gets the question, "How much of that did you actually model and texture." is insulted.

The person looking at their work doesn't acknowledge anything other than what they actually built from scratch. What are your opinions on this?

Michael Knubben

A level designer typically does use assets created by someone else, but as an environment artist/prop artist it's not a good idea to use someone elses work in your portfolio items..
If you're in the position where you're showing off work from a commercial title however, it's likely not 100% of everything in a screenshot is yours. In that case, make it abundantly clear which parts are yours.

If you leave potential employers uncertain on what you did, there's a very real chance they'll just forget about you altogether to be on the safe side.

Bruno Afonseca

It's not a big deal having stuff from other artists on your scene if you're honest about it and give proper credit.

This is a very elegant way of doing it, for example: http://www.ivassago.com/lagunav4.htm