I guess the "golden" theme pretty much messed up with sven's default color scheme. Keep in mind that the colours are very important for recognizition of the character.
Also Toolbag has less compression and optimization done by default, here's one example, http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2096054&postcount=124
Brackets appear when an object is selected or when there is a key frame on the object at the current slider time. The J key is the default hotkeys to turn them off.
thanks for the compliments. @koufuyo, I don't think I understand your first question. Render wise, there's no settings, it's just max's default scanline settings.
Working with default soft particles first. When I've got the movement and timing down, I'll move to the particles themselves. Buildup + some idle time:
Check the Texture palette to make sure Transparency is off; if it is on (which I think it is by default) then Zbrush might be treating black areas of the texture as being transparent.
Sorry, just realised i didn't have the checkbox ticked at the beginning to allow for it. Thought everything was on by default with new projects. Thanks for the quick response though :)