Thanks very much for the crits and comments. (updated image) Been playing around quickly with overall colours. I'm leaning towards the darker, however the red is a little more fitting wtih New Years.
adjust 'shadow attenuation' on the blinn's materials attributes under the Raytrace Options Tab maybe? -I can't remember if it should be set to 0 or 1 (default is .5) but you should figure it out quickly.
i think its astonishing theyve raised that much money so quickly!! i think this is really neat. :D definitely could open up some huge opportunities for the indie developers out there.
I think you're jumping into detail too fast. You subdivided your mesh too quickly and you've lost structure to a lot of important shapes and folds that skin, muscle, and bone naturally has.
I did pick it up and quickly realized it was beyond my level, at that time. I also switched away from characters towards environments. It's quality though! Don't break your bank for it, of course
Create your camera, Put the cam into a group, (this will allow you edit the cam and still have it follow the character) Parent cam GROUP to character, probably the hips. Quickly checked this method in Maya, it works.
This is the thread that popped into my head as soon as I saw this topic. Dunno if anyone posted it yet, I just skimmed through quickly to the end. http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=880504
You could probably do something simple fairly fast by using ZBrush to sculpt on a base mesh to get large shapes quickly, then use Decimation Master to optimise it down to an in-game polygon count.
here's a little tutorial I put together for setting up materials in Max (normal, spec, color and glow) http://chrisholden.net/tutor/maxnm_material.jpg not specific to glow, but quickly covers applying on to a material in Max.
I am going to be in Ogrimmar tonight and can get to ThunderBluff and surrounding areas quickly. My character name is Kickstomp, a Tauren Warrior. I am trying to get the 10 sigs as we speak..