Light is the most important in CG, above modeling and texturing; it gives the render right emotions, even without textures.
You need to spend time analyzing the real world to be able to imitate it. Inspiration comes from the outside.
To obtain photorealism, remember: everything in this world has a certain imperfection: color, reflection, geometry, placement or all of them.
Due to short deadlines I prefer adding details in postproduction, I find it very fun. I really love photoshop integration.
If your model is done well, it's easy to modify: you can be sure, your customer will ask fast modifications.
There's always a lot to improve. But in each project you need to find the balance between "quickly" and "qualitatively".
Anyone can learn the software, but to be outstanding 3d-artist, I suggest to gain some sort of visual communication literacy.
Feed your mind with nice real world references, understand color theory and keep all objects in your scene in scale.
With time we'll get even closer to reality, it will be hard to distinguish a virtual image from a photograph.
High demand for visual quality in videogames pushed technology behind the game industry to surpass capabilities of architects’ CAD tools.
3D is just a tool, so the most important is to provide the solution for the needs of our customers.
The difficult thing is to keep up with growing visualization technology. You have to keep learning to be on top.