Yep, that's a good way to look at it. Another example FWIW. I made the grass shorter as it gets closer to the rocky path. Mongrelman, we have an English translation of that on the wiki, if it helps.
Hmm. If you have the time, I'd maybe combine metro interiors. For example, here is NYC's subway interior. I think the bars that curve and stuff are way more interesting.
Looks fine! But you need to improve render and materials, extra details will be also nice (anchor for example).You can think about environment too. Keep it up! :thumbup:
This is how to post images to your forum post And read this thread for your problems with the cylinder. this is an example of the problem I think you are having. "not enough geo" means not enough polygons.
You'll want to place the UV seams with the hard edges on the mesh, so I think the extra verts are already going to be there. Simple cubes were never really the best example.
Great attention to detail! It looks like some of your details could be exaggerated a bit more to be better picked up in the normal. Those bolts for example seem pretty straight
When you are sure, that your caf files are the same, have you checked your character editor settings? The animations will be displayed differently for example if have "animation driven" checked.