Best ways to present an animation portfolio?

Ryan Smith

Hey guys, i'm coming up on graduation in about 6 months and was wondering what the best way to present an animation portfolio would be.

I'm focusing in animation with my secondary being environment to show i'm well rounded, so it's goingto be a 70% - 30 % portfolio, with the 70% being animation and 30 % being environment work.

Anyways, the question that i want to ask first is, since i'm not going for character artist, should my animated meshes be textured, or should i just have a plain gray model that has a decent skin rig on it.

Another question I have is: Is it necessary to have a section of the demo reel dedicated to rig set ups, or is that getting into technical art? I am unaware of the structure of a game company when it comes to this dept... Does the technical artist do the skeleton or do they leave the skeletal rig up to the animator? Just curious.


Any insight would be great guys, thanks :-)

gavku

....there's no harm in having a textured model animated in there, as long as the texture doesn't detract from the animation ( ie: its not horrendous )... Rigging depends on the studio. I've been at studios where the animators rigged, and also been at studios where character artists rigged. Unless you've built a pretty neat custom rig I wouldn't bother....

like this guys...

http://www.luvictu.com/

more info blah blah here:

http://fliponline.blogspot.com/

danr

i wouldn't bother with the texture, but it's good to see a skinned model rather than just a rendered biped or whatever - especially if the mesh is unwieldy and features all manner of bulky things that are tricky to animate around (assuming you pull this off of course)

a short section showing you understand skinning and custom rigs is welcome, as long as it's quick and simple and doesn't come across like a tutorial. Maybe a short clip of skinning, deforming the joint, and tweaking up the skinning to get the best out of it. And then another of using a bone to add an extra level to an anim, such as an armoured shoulder pad or something. As i say though, keep it all quick.

Oh and : use .mov for your showreel so people can easily scrub through it. And if you must put music on it, keep it low-key, don't use ministry or tool (comedy animation showreel cliches) and do NOT bloody credit it at the end.

edit - oh and and : properly consider two seperate showreels, one for animation, and one for environment work. They're almost entirely disparate, no matter what company you apply to, and the chances are that different people will be looking over them. You don't want one to distract or detract from the other. If you end up applying for environment in the end, that should be the heavy focus for that reel.

Ryan Smith

Thanks for the insight guys! much appreciated :-)

animatr

I used other peoples pixels service. http://otherpeoplespixels.com/pricing

I really dig it. kinda pricey (25/mo for video package) but incredibly easy to use, very classy looking, and super easy to update. even with video stuff, they give you converters that convert pretty much any video type and uploads it to the site. I really dig it.

Here's mine, kinda outdated, but this way you can get an idea of how nice it streams and the presentation:
http://jeremyernst.com/home.html

also, I hate animation portfolios where i have to download movies. I hate that shit.

ebagg

I would think if you need a "secondary" you work more on a skill complimentary to animation, like rigging, weighting, and riging-specific technical art.