Only took around 8 hours or so. Most of it was finished while I slept.

And yeah, I do need radiosity and reflections... I was going for making realistic metal and a smooth polished stone for the floor for the reflections.

After all, it was for a school project. If I was just dicking around with dynamics I'd have never put this much effort into something like this.

As for poly count, I'd say it was pretty barebones to begin with. There were probably a few places I could have cut down, but really it wasn't my intent since this is supposed to be a kind of portfolio piece. And, as a personal thing, I usually don't care about my poly count to begin with. I use as many as I need to get the desired result--Granted, I'm not saying I'm just tossing bevels and extrudes everywhere, cause that's just stupid. I'm just saying poly count isn't anywhere near my primary concern.

8 hours isn't very long. >.>; Granted that for most of us, that's a long time while you are awake to not being able to use the computer, but its not like its rendering for 3 days around the clock. We get that a lot at the end of semester when everybody is doing their final projects in the animation lab.