I use blender for personal entertainment basically and have gotten pretty good at doing small spacecraft. My problem is that when i try to do large craft (like Galactica from TV) it always looks bare. I could go in and do tons of pipes and windows but that would take so long its ridiculous. I could use just a texture but im not that great at working with textures and i never would get it to the point where it doesnt look like a pasted picture on a flat surface. I get the same thing with armored vehicles, i can do the whole tank body and apply camouflage but when it comes to little things like the Machine gun on top it always looks crappy.
So how do you make something look highly detailed?
Thats why a few shots on some movies take a team of CG artist months to complete. Its Slow and hard work.
If you are using simple light models and only distant shots then textures would do. But if you have a compilcatied light models and/or close ups (like GI) then you will need to model the detail. In the case of close ups you only add detail to where its needed.
You make something look highly detailed by detailing it highly. If you’re too lazy to add all the detail, then It’ll look low-detail. That’s basically all there is.
(One thing people do is make a “library” of square greeble “tiles” with blocks, cables, hatches, and whatnot on them. You make them “geomorphic”, which means any tile placed next to any other tile will have the cables connect properly. Even if some of the tiles are rotated.
Once you’ve make a few tiles, you can then rapidly cover a surface with them.