Turn on raytracing? :confused: I don't understand what you mean, because mental ray automatically has reflections on. You can edit reflectivity and reflected color in the shader's attributes.

Cloth? Because that might work, or just a simple box with very small but smooth edges, and use a bump map to make it seem loose in certain areas.

Go into the duplicate options and make one of the axis -1 probobly.

It looks like a barbute and corinthian style helm, both of which were completely round. I think the person's helmet in the photo was completely round as well. As a person who looks at armor alot I...

If you cannot decide I would suggest thinking about it how they manufacture it real life. I would say if its good enough for companys making millions of dollars its efficient enough. Something like...

The only thing I can think of is that the other side is another object, and you have not applied texture to it. Does it show up when rendering? The uv's are probobly the same, and it would probobly...

Select the polygons you want to apply the texture to, then apply the texture to them.

Unless you know some people and have a REALLY GOOD reel, you might be able to get a job doing something. For feature film production studios, I am sure you need schooling, and minor experience...

Paint effects are rendered last, that is why. Convert the paint effects to polys would be the easiest way.

I am fairly sure Maya does not utilize the 64bit processors yet.