Thanks for the replies
I'll just restate this point though:
so I decided to do some modelling for the sheer hell of doing it
It's not being made for a game, I'm just modelling it because I felt like it
The highest poly maps in a game like UT2004 never go above 100,000, and this scene currently at about 37500 faces (triangulated that will be just over 70,000). That's why it looks so smooth - because it
is smooth. Additional detail will be added through bump, specular, reflect maps and the like of course.
And yes, I'm using 3dsmax. I'm also thinking about modelling the port into the scene as well, once I've got this area finished. Depends how much my pc chokes though (it's a bit underpowered at the moment thanks to my hard disks and graphics dying a few weeks ago).
edit: Renders updated! First reference picture is finished, click the link in my first post for the updated pics. Now working on the second picture...