Strip away all the furniture, curtains, etc. Yes, 2 days for the floor + walls + window + trims. And that's being liberal. Then add 2-4 hours per furniture item. Books etc can come from prop libraries too.
Damn, next time I see one of those "I want to work in games but I can't find a job and I have the same two items in my portfolio with no intention of updating it" Threads I'm going to simply link to that article.
There was a 20/20 special on photoretouching everyday items and foods such as turkeys and ham and even before and after shots for cleaning agents. The goal is always "stretch the truth, but not so much that it breaks". Vague captions and fine print only help that idea further.
I really like this. The only thing that bothers me is how much light there is from the door. It looks as if there is a light next to the door that is illuminating the doorway and the staircase, but there's only a small window on the door. The lantern doesn't appear to be the item lighting the door either.
If you still need help with this, the best way to keep armor and similar items from deforming is to simply assign all it's verts to a single bone. Say it's a shoulderpad. Assign all of the verts in the pad to the clavicle near it, and it should move with the shoulder, and not deform.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701 This is like the HDD's i have. Its 250gb, fast (cant get much faster with SATA unless you buy Raptor), has 16megs cache and under $100 from newegg it seems.
It would be very rare in a AAA studio for an environment artist to make weapons, with the exception of very large items like cannons or catapults. But if you have all the skills required to make environment props, there's no reason you wouldn't be able to make a decent weapon.
Small update playing around with the foreground items and dabbling in some more vertex painting on rocks and tree trunks, might keep the Ivy on the tree trunk in the foreground or might swap it for mushrooms just need to wait and see. Feedback is appreciated as always :D
It does it automatically. You can see the values updated under the low-poly item. Perhaps try fbx or some other file format. Otherwise try disabling 'discard backface hits' under baking options and see if anything shows up.
Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback. @atomander I think you're right. I'm working on adjustments and adding details. I think some decor/personal items on the shelves and desk will help w scale as well, so that's my next step.