I'm not too fond of modeling interiors, I might just leave that to someone else.
Good morning forget the interiors, it's a waist of resources, especially if we want to use it for any animation. I did model the interior of the little restaurant in sector 8, with burning candles and a full kitchen....
Nobody is ever going to see that, so I finally trashed the place anyway. Just takes too much strain on rendering. It will only make sense if we have a sandbox environment with the total freedom to roam around Midgar. But that will take a different aproach and needs a lot of redisign anyway, so that is not in scope.
About the materials, I'm personally more concerned about mapping, rather then the actual materials. If the mapping is not done correctly you have to revisit all objects in order to fix that. That is a nightmare, especially for the more complex objects. For mapping I would use a colored checkbox kind of texture, however if you don;t intend to do any texturing, I would advise to keep it 50% grey, that will give the best presentation result.
As for the textures and materials, most of Midgar is industrial, like steel, iron, rust, concrete. Abandonned trainyards come to mind, except for the normally growing plants and half covering trees and broken buildings. The Living part of Midgar is also including bricks, french coble roads, neon signs, etc.
And indeed, most time is being sucked into UV mapping and materials.
I prefer to model as well. Oh and lets not forget the rigging and animation, and the next part will be compositing of course.
Just keep up the good work.
Which version of Midgar are you on now 3 or 4?
Oh and make backups, and note where you stored the backups...
(that's just some personal advise as my total archive has become quite big over time)