tbh that's kinda what I thought looked cool is the combo of celshading with realistic textures. I will continuously be updating the character models and may go for more low-poly versions with less photorealistic textures but I like the scenery as is. If I was to make lower polygon more basic chararacters however, It would probably drive more simplicity into the animations and scenery too and idk if thats really what I wanna do for a PC skateboarding game centric around realism. jet grind radio looks cool but it is in no way based on realism.

the most important moments I hope to capture is the satisfaction you get in skate and ssx as you see a really complicated line or string of tricks barely landed, then go in and look at the fabulously animated replay from all angles. but hopefully the moment will be more satisfying due to the string of failed attempts preceding it

even if i keep mental ray mode, I'm gonna have to do lower quality preview viewport renders just so my computer doesnt have to shit itself every time I try and render out an animation