offset surface

incandescent map is the way to go if you're not getting up too close tothe ship.

the jagged you see has to do with tesselation.

windows/general editors/attribute spread sheet

go to tessellation tab

turn on explicit tessellation, increase the U and V division factors (i...

what you might want to do is also keep the surface your trimmed out.

ie, you duplicate hood, untrim the hole, re-trim, this time keeping the inside part. that could work as your glass lamp...

Suurland uses trimmed surfaces, which will make your life a lot easier. Also, for the VW, he used Rhino, which is a lot more forgiving than maya.

with the method you're using, the key is using...

what's the poly count on this thing?

i've already done my TT. I'd suggest using a multi-pass rendering technique. Final Gather to start, specular pass, shadow pass, etc...you'll get a better final output.

oh, and just loft the...