I don't know of any books, but Inigo Quilez's site is really inspiring:https://www.iquilezles.org/www/index.htm He's in the shader demoscene, specializing in procedural shaders (and the science behind them).
http://www.3dmotive.com/training/zbrush/texturing-and-baking-with-zbrush-xnormal-and-ndo/?follow=true watch either this, or you can find all your answers in polycount wiki
This is my preferred method. It's not 3dsMax but the process should be pretty repeatable. http://www.3dartistonline.com/news/2015/04/how-do-i-create-real-time-hair-for-games/
Agreed, really nice music. The rest of the game looks like it's shaping up to be pretty cool, too: http://www.1up.com/news/radiant-historia-time-tripping-madness
No problem :) That is pretty much how I do it, here is a few things to look at. http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/tips/thirding.jpg http://eat3d.com/udk_modular https://www.3dmotive.com/f101001
betas out folks, lets take a look! http://www.123dapp.com/ edit: at 417 meg its fairly beefy.. hoping for something reasonably substantial here.. still downloading