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[Portfolio] – metalliandy, Andy Davies, 3D/Environment Artist

metalliandy
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metalliandy interpolator
Hey guys,

Just wanted to post my WIP portfolio :)

http://www.metalliandy.com

Got a few bugs to fix and i have change the background on the bed images and get a LP shot for the tyre (main PC is down so i cant access the main files yet), but i thought it was high time for some crit.

Thanks for looking :)
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  • danshewan
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    danshewan polycounter lvl 8
    Pfft, projection master? Here's me thinking you sculpted all that detail by hand.... :)

    Seriously, though, very nice. Simple, clean and nicely presented. I know some people have issues with HighSlide (I'm presuming that's what your image viewer uses, anyway), but everything loaded quickly for me and navigation was really easy.

    The only thing I'd change, and it's pretty minor, is to change the color of your ZBrush materials to the gray clay (or similar), as opposed to the default. Personally, I think sculpts read better in the gray, especially for architectural work but that's just my preference.

    Great work, buddy - the fountain looks really great.
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  • Progg
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    Progg polycounter lvl 11
    Nice stuff. Took a few seconds for the high res's to load though. Maybe that is just my connection though.
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  • marq4porsche
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    marq4porsche polycounter lvl 9
    Awesome art, really inspiring stuff dude! site itself is kinda wonky because it's hard to scroll with your mousewheel.
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  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    I like the overall layout, but do not like the lightbox thingy, especially when theres no arrows to go to previous/next images.
    I don't like the big blank grey gap between the menu and the images. you should push the images up a bit more.

    I'd rather have zoomed in sections of that fountain thingy instead of isolated parts. And I'm not sure you really need a video for each isolated part, that is overdoing it :p I personally didn't bother watching all of them, just scrubbed through one of them out of curiosity.

    It would be better to see more images like the fountain thingy instead of a bunch of workflow videos, for a portfolio site anyway. Maybe you should put those videos in their own "tutorial" section. But they're technically not tutorials either so... duno, I'd remove them completely :p

    Bed looks nice, tyre, not so much. It's really not hard to make a tyre like that and it doesn't really show much skill :o Maybe if it had some pretty rims as well, then it'd be worth showing~ Or even better, a whole vehicle to go with it :D

    oh, theres also no stats like polycount, texture sizes or texture flats!
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  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    It's a bit one sided. I realize you love that well (and rightfully so) but it takes up 3/4th of the entire folio.

    Contact page is useless right now.

    The image viewer feels slow.

    Also, png or gif for text, 8-16 colours should be plenty.
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  • JarlanPerez
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    JarlanPerez
    Great work. I really the attention to detail that you placed on you pieces. I would like like to see a little more texture work in there. The few that you have look great and I think adding a little bit more of that will improve the portfolio overall.
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  • Mask_Salesman
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    Mask_Salesman polycounter lvl 13
    The wires on the fountain are abit messy :P, looks nice tho.
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  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    i think the AO is a bit glossy, might want to look into that...
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  • Serp
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    Serp polycounter lvl 17
    Great bed. Did you do the folds in the bed with zbrush?
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Wow, Thanks for all the replies everyone :D


    @Dan,
    LOL! Thanks :D
    I think you are right about the default ZB mat...i will change them all over once i can get into the files :)



    @Progg,
    Cheers!
    The site is hosted by Fasthosts and it can be quite slow sometimes...im going to look for a better host soon :)



    @marq4porsche
    Thanks man!
    Im not sure what you mean about it being hard to scroll with the mouse wheel :/
    Could you elaborate a little please?



    @Yozora
    Thanks for the crit. mate :)

    I will definitely sort out the arrows so people can skip across the whole gallery...I will try to fix that today.

    Im a little limited to what i can actually put in the portfolio at the moment as i cant access any of the source files until i sort my main PC out, so things like better angles, textures, texture sizes and tri counts cant be added until then.
    I wanted to get something up so i could be productive but unfortunately had to work with what i had in dropbox :/

    I put the tyre in there because it was something that shows a totally different modelling technique and style to everything else that i currently have access too. :)
    Better to show a little versatility than 50 shots of just the fountain right? :P



    @Snader
    Thanks for the crit :)

    I agree that the whole thing is really biased toward to Fountain but until i have access to the source files there isnt much i can do about it really. :/

    I will fill out the contact page some more and will add stuff like MSN, Linkedin, email.
    I think the slowness of the image viewer is down to the hosting but i will look into it.

    The whole nav is about about 30k and with the super connection speeds of today i didn't think it would be a problem really but i could change them to .gif or .png without too much hassle if you think it's that bad which would prob. take it down to 10k or so. :)



    @JarlanPerez
    Thanks for kind words man! I really appreciate it :D
    I will get some more texture work up asap!



    @Mask_Salesman
    Thanks man!
    Where are the wires messy? Im all intrigued now :P



    @gir,
    LOL
    I swear its not my fault :P



    @Serp
    Thanks man!

    The sheet was done with a cloth simulation and then touched up a little in ZB.
    The whole bed was just an excuse for me to learn Blenders cloth system really ^^




    I was thinking about separating each asset into different galleys, so the front page would show 1 thumbnail for each piece which would then take you to the assets individual page.

    What do you guys think? would that be too much clicking?


    Thanks again for all the comments guys...i was pretty gob smacked with the number of replys :)
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  • Mark Dygert
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    Mark Dygert mod
    Good stuff! Do more!

    It takes a while to for me to load up the only slightly larger images.

    I think you need to work some diffuse maps into your pieces.
    I think you need to display low poly wireframes.
    I think you need to display texture sheets.

    I think you also need to be clear on your construction methods, are those detailed patterns something you stamped or something you sculpted in? Stamping is fine and pretty common but its helps to gauge your skill if they know just how much sculpting you did.

    Lastly...
    - Zbrush
    - Blender
    - CrazyBump
    - UDK
    - Marmoset Engine
    - Photoshop
    - xNormal
    - Unwrap 3d Pro
    - MeshLab

    I hate to say it but you could get bounced for not having Max or Maya on that list =/
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  • Snader
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    Snader polycounter lvl 15
    It's not so much about image size, as it is about crispness.
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @Vig,

    Cheers man, Thanks for the crit!

    I will definitely get some more flats and LP wire stuff in there as soon as i can.

    The relief on the fountain was done by using an alpha in projection master for the basic shapes and then i filled it out manually to get the final result.
    There are a bunch of timelapse vids showing exactly what i did on site...it would be really cool if you would give me your thoughts on those :)

    As for the Max/Maya thing...yea i realise this could be a problem, but i was hoping that the art would stand on its own merit and maybe people would overlook the fact its wasn't done in any of the big 3.
    It basically comes down to me not having the £3k+ to get Max and not wanting to go the whole pirate route :S...If i had the cash, i would jump on Max so fast mate :)


    @Snader
    Oh i get ya!
    The AA on the text was set to smooth but i could change that pretty fast once i get hold of the PSD. :)
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  • Joshua Stubbles
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    Joshua Stubbles polycounter lvl 19
    nice work man, definitely more impressive than mine. The normal map work is clean and well done.

    Like Vig, I agree that some diffuse work would be nice to see. Also, some of the arch pieces look like they're a bit too weathered (imo), almost like you dragged the "dirty brush" down the entire edge - it's all too uniform, in other words. Stone wouldn't wear away perfectly along the entire edge and at the same rate across the entire object.
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Vassago wrote: »
    nice work man, definitely more impressive than mine. The normal map work is clean and well done.

    Like Vig, I agree that some diffuse work would be nice to see. Also, some of the arch pieces look like they're a bit too weathered (imo), almost like you dragged the "dirty brush" down the entire edge - it's all too uniform, in other words. Stone wouldn't wear away perfectly along the entire edge and at the same rate across the entire object.

    Thanks for kind words mate :)

    In regards to the arch piece, i tried to make the damage as generic as possible as it was repeated so often but i think you are prob. right that i went a little OTT in some places

    Next time i would tone it down a little. ^^
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Hey guys,

    I added titles so i can include polycounts etc., though i was hoping it could be implemented on the bottom of the images...i will see if that is possible later on.
    I also managed to get the gallery function working so now everything is navigable but i decided to exclude the videos from the main gallery and add them to their own one instead.
    For some reason you cant roll from the last image to the first...im not sure why yet.

    Thanks for looking :)
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  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    All I see is a big "coming soon" page. You should of bumped this thread when the site was ready to be looked at again with the improvements :( Fail.
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @Yozora,

    The link works fine mate :P
    Make sure you are using the dev link in the first post and not the one in my sig.

    http://www.metalliandy.com/dev/index.html

    Fail denied. ^^
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  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    ah I see. You should of taken the link out of your signature or edited it to avoid confusion! Fail re-enabled!
    I don't like these little arrows, they keep moving position due to the different sized images. It would be better if all images were equal size, or if the arrows were permanently on the left and right sides of the screen (in the same positions regardless of image size). Like this guy's; http://www.marquishoughton.com/

    I just feel like browsing images, not playing a mini-FPS game targeting the moving arrows to click :p
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Ahh yea.

    The main reason why i didn't change the sig. link is due to the fact that the folio isn't live yet and its prob. best to limit the amount of people who view it in its current state to those who are reading this thread as they can view it in context.

    Sorry for the confusion mate.

    I agree about the arrows changing places is a pain...i will see what i can do about that :)

    Thanks for all the crit man!
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Hey guys!

    I have finally got this going (thanks to help from Glynn Smith) with new updated content :)

    http://www.metalliandy.com/

    I still dont have access to the Fountain assets, the Hospital bed or the Oil Barrel but i have done what i can with the stuff i had online.

    Here is what has been changed
    • Added 8 new assets that are textured with flats for 7 of them (the 8th will be added as soon as i can)
    • Changed the lightbox to Fancybox so it loads a little faster (though the arrows still move...im working on fixing that)
    • Changed the navigation to be text based rather than the images that were there previously
    • Changed the colour scheme to be slightly darker than it was previously
    • Updated the CV/Resume and Contacts
    • Added filtering for images and videos so they can be viewed together or in isolation
    • Added an Extra sections for Tutorials and links (with 2 tutorials so far)

    Hope you like it! :)
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  • chrisradsby
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    chrisradsby polycounter lvl 14
    I wouldn't say that Max/Maya are necessary, they are just tools, the knowledge is transferrable, he'll pick it up quickly once he gets to it. Though as said, it does help to have some experience with any of them.
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  • Oniram
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    Oniram polycounter lvl 16
    the link 404s.. im assuming its not supposed to be /dev/index...
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    @Chris
    Thanks for the vote of confidence :)

    @Oniram,
    Sorry about that...i put the link on my last post but forgot to update the first post.
    Fixed now :)
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  • PredatorGSR
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    PredatorGSR polycounter lvl 14
    The fountain texture and normal map are very noisy and really detract from the model imo. Good looking stuff though.
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  • metalliandy
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    metalliandy interpolator
    Thanks for the kinds words man :)
    The texture on the fountain is unfortunately still WIP as i didnt get the chance to finish it up before my computer died.
    It was the most up to date version i had though and i figured it was better than nothing.
    You think i should maybe take it down until the final is done?
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