I suggest you rebuild your lofted surface...check that it's NOT chord length surface...it should be uniform with 0 to # of spans for a clean result.

Well,in my case i usually use NURBS cylinders with a pretty good amount of isoparms...i then add a lattice to the cylinder to further simplify the tweaking process with more smoothness. Also consider...

If i'm not mistaken,subdv's are only available in Maya unlimited.
Maya complete 4.5 is the version you are looking for coz it has just recently supported subdv's

if i'm not mistaken ,more or less they all need the same time because sub-d's are close to smoothed poly's and NURBS will automatically be tesselated when rendered....:D

try giving the light bulb some incandesance....

i suggest u use spot lights (maybe 3) on the glass...and try adding some more amount of index refraction..:banana:

well there isn't any other alternative for the expolsion...the dynamics system is qiute a handy solution...but one thing u can do though is to bake the dynamics animation afterwards changing them all...

I suggest you use nurbs when creating smooth robotic forms.:beer:

i also suggest you use the env sky coz u can also animate it rising in a very easy and efficient way through the attr. editor

i use an optical mouse but i have realised that sometimes the wheel mouse can be surprisingly more acurate