Becoming a "3D Game Environment" artist, portfolio questions.

jake1210

If I want to become a 3D Environment Artist, should my portfolio show only full environments or can I make various props. I have just noticed a lot of studios seem to not hire a specific "Prop Artist" position, but have discovered various professionals who only feature outstanding props on their portfolio. I just have never properly been taught texture atlas and have an issue where when I make things such as walls or floors they look very bland as I make them tileable as I have been taught and there is no variation due to this. So I am also open to tutorials on this subject, although I have seen many and they all seem to be different workflows so I would like to know the best industry standard workflow. But to sum up my original question, can you get off being a 3D Environment artist with only amazing prop work?

CrackRockSteady

The short answer is that if you want to be an environment artist and not simply a prop modeler you will want to demonstrate that you can actually put together a scene and light it.

Really, as long as you've already got some amazing looking props, why not just go the extra bit and put together a little scene using what you've already made?

While it probably is possible to land a job as an environment artist with only amazing props in your portfolio, if it's down to you and another artist of equal skill who has realtime environment work in their portfolio, they've got a pretty significant advantage as it'll be instantly obvious they can build environments and not just props.

jake1210

Okay thank you for that information ! I've been studying designing modular scenes for a while, but can not figure out how to make the variations you see across things such as walls or grounds. So I will make a decent few prop and the tiling in the background will totally catch the eye and take away from it right away. I think I missed this part in school and have yet to find a tutorial that thoroughly explains how to texture with an atlas or just a full environment in general, but may be looking in the wrong places. 

CrackRockSteady

Repetition of tiling textures and modular elements can be broken up in a number of ways.  Material blending, decals, prop placement, lighting, etc.

Be sure to check out the polycount wiki if you haven't already, there's a lot of really useful info there.