Haha, who told you all of this? You're definitely hanging around with the wrong people. On Polycount the usual bad advice I've seen is usually squashed a few posts later by someone more experienced or sensible.
Probably needs a Visual Studio dll for an older version. These usually don't ship with the OS. But if you find out which version, you can usually download the correct end user runtime from Microsoft.
Everything is looking really good (as usual), love the potato sign! The three things that strikes me as odd is that there's no gravel on the road and no ditches along the sides, as well as the color of the M-sign (it's usually very dark-blue, almost black).
This. They usually have a 40% off deal 1-2 times a year, usually around christmas and before a new version comes out. If you plan on buying a Modo license I would recommend waiting for the next sale.
Ah yes. The old forced to polish turds situation. Happens way too often. Usually enforced by someone who doesn't understand the art pipeline. Usually managers who lack foresight or don't bother to plan ahead.
Less GI renders, more wireframes: gives people more to critique. GI renders usually hide errors. Screengrabs are usually better, as they give both information on the wireframe and mesh and they take alot less time than renders.
To achieve this you can edit the cage . I am not sure about Maya but in MAx and Blender the tracing is happening in direction between low poly vertex and corresponding cage vertex. You can make the "face" side of a cylinder doing more like planar projecting , lesser of a lens effect for an expense of stronger distortion…
This is actually really cool, I don't usually click on threads with Space Station in the title because they're usually that samey modular pseudo-futuristic style, but this feels like real space. I like it so far!
Usually you're paid a yearly salary, not by the hour. Every studio is different, though. There have been a number of these threads here on polycount. Usually people are pointed to the various game industry salary surveys on gamasutra and other sites.