Fully Realtime 3d portfolio yay or nay?

leslievdb

So with services like p3d.in and 3d in general becoming more accessible on the web would it be a good idea to have a 3d character/assets portfolio that displays the models themselves instead of screencaptures?

I always found covering realtime assets with a load of postfluff to be an odd thing to do if you want someone to be able to judge your technical capabilities as good as possible. So having your model out there in realtime would be very clear imo.

The only downside of it could be loadingtimes but when i see the p3d.in service i think that`s still in a very acceptable amount of time that it loads a model with 3 1k textures on it

Anyway what do you guys think of it?

The reason i`m asking is because i`m considering making one for my realtime characters and updating all of my content.

almighty_gir

i think the only time it might have value, is if you were to do it with an actual engine, like UDK or Unity...

like, build your own "level" which loads up a model, has basic camera rotation/zoom functions, and the ability to switch models.

the reason i say this, is because you would have to build your scene, and materials, which would show your capability with working in engines as well as your modeling ability.

i could be wrong though!

Hazardous

Unnacceptable man honestly. If it takes longer than 2 or 3 seconds to load your folio, your doing it wrong. An AD or lead should be able to see a quick overview of all of your work in a couple of seconds, no clicking, no scrolling - as fast as possible.

That being said, if you want to have a link to a 3d version of any given model - sure man definitely throw that up there. But dont have it load them straight off the bat - that will lead to your folio being closed before its even been seen.

Others might have different experiences to share, but my own are that the AD's and leads that ive worked with, dont have time to devote hours at looking through folios. Not when they have a stack of 5-10-20-30 per day to look through during hiring times.

Generally its one click, if it doesnt load or take too long, you missed out - simple as that. Sometimes if theres a flash load screen or something that pops up - its closed instantly. <-- True.

leslievdb

wow i didn`t realize it was such a fast process but i do get why if you have to go through several applicants in a day.
that pretty much boils it down to a nay

tnx for the input guys

ZacD

Maybe something like this? http://turntables.stepanchikov.com/meshes/7

JamesWild

There's also the issue of asset theft. It's impossible to get a model from some images and/or a video, but as P3D.in and its ilk send clients the model wrapped in a WebGL viewer, there's a lot of easy ways to rip the mesh. You're also asking users to turn WebGL on, which despite assurances from Mozilla, as someone who's used the OpenGL API quite extensively, I would never recommend.

Lamont

I like still images with an option to view a loaded 3D model (if there is an option).

moose

You could be super graceful with it, and have a render that mirrors the first frame of the 3d plugin, so people can see it the image, then when the 3d is done loading seamlessly transition to 3d model.

I prefer 2d images, but saw a portfolio recently that had all 3d stuff and I was blown away with how cool it was. As long as you can do it without impeding the viewer from actually seeing and accessing your work, there isn't a problem imo. The solution should not be black/white either - if you do it, figure out how to do it really well, and not just the path of least resistance.

Maybe another place to get some inspiration is how Zappo's handles the photos of the shoes you're looking to buy. They have 3-4 photos, then a video demonstrating the shoe. Using that as a base, you could have a few super nice renders/images, and have the supplemental 3d to view:

[ i m a g e ]
[A][C][3d]

The minute you see your site is overloaded from people dl'ing the 3d, or the plugins stop working; and it isn't something that you can fix easily, I'd remove the 3d from your site until you figure it out.

leslievdb

JamesWild: Hmm yeah the asset theft is another good point but i don`t think it`s any safer when an asset ships with a game since people can also rip them. That wouldn`t really stop me from posting my models online since i`m still the only one who has the sourcefiles and can always claim its my work.
Isnt webgl enabled by default in new browsers?

ZacD: Yeah thats the next best thing, i used to do 360 gifs but they are pretty heavy filesizewise. Having a limited set of angles is still better than a still image and your first frame always loads as fast as any other image so theres no real extra loading time before something is shown with that system

moose: thats a great idea! tnx for the input