Photo-based. You're right about the textures. I have devised a "master lighting" system that's going to take advantage of it, heavily. I'm going to showcase this environment under multiple lighting conditions viewed from every angle. I'm hoping to impress people with what will only use 1MB of memory, for everything!
I wasn't satisfied with the original uv unwrap. I found it was hard to texture because I hadn't aligned it properly to my references, so I redid it till I got closer. The rest was time spent in photoshop playing with the colors as well as researching. Also, the lighting is baked in. I plan on showcasing a different time of…