I would be the biggest prick on the planet to get mad, you provided a few amazing references and that was the most useful post i've received.
I've been working on new lighting techniques and i'm becoming more aware of the more powerful features of max 2014, so I definitely want to take another look at where I rushed Nitro 99. I have a pretty bad case of ADHD and don't mind coming back to stuff when something else helped me advance. Max 2014 feels more like a game engine for developing once you learn how it works, but setting up a render makes things look oh so damn perfect. It's a bit like building the legos, then putting them together. So much faster and more realistic than photoshop once you learn how to create things. Also, i'm using a fair bit of WWE 2k14 textures to speed up workflow. I
could draw them, but If its going to look the same either way and I'm not getting paid, who cares.
I'll work on getting this perfect for you. This was the first arena so it got the rush job as so many have to be made. I did a LOT of retouching in photoshop, where on the other arenas I recreated them video-game quality. I'm going to redo it almost entirely. Top of the list is increasing the brightness of the scaffolding, and probably redoing it all with a much lower polycount. This arena is one of my faves too, but in the meantime, please enjoy this Nitro 2000 WIP and tell me if the change in style has helped.