I was missing some general knowledge in arnold, and kept finding some really complex tutorials. this was just what i needed to get started! thank you!!
You pretty much just took presets and attempted to achieve them manually, except not well. The glass for example in your original is clearly made with a preset, but when you make a new one it looks flat and doesn't even have the specular reflections. If you're going to copy then at least explain how to properly set all the parameters that the preset uses. But for everyone else, when you create your standardSurface material, on top right in the attribute editor you see Presets*, click on that and you can make all the materials (besides bump and emission) that he made here plus 15 others, and they'll look 2x better than what he made here.
do you have any tips for someone new to maya on learning texturing in arnold? I've been using blender for 2 years but switched to maya and dont knwo where to start in texturing