[Portfolio] Paul Svoboda, Environment Artist
polycounter lvl 12
Hello everyone,
I'm finally making it to the end of school and have a few more months until I graduate. I've been collecting my past work and building up a portfolio to begin sending out. I'm currently working on rendering out individual props, wireframes and texture sheets. [Edit] I'm also going back to the Hand Painted environment as there is still one texture that isn't mine (it's small, but I haven't yet replaced it yet).
I'd love critique on the website, the work, suggestions on what I can add, what I should take away, what I should work on, etc.
The website is: paulsvoboda.net
Here is a quick preview:
Thanks a lot.
I'm finally making it to the end of school and have a few more months until I graduate. I've been collecting my past work and building up a portfolio to begin sending out. I'm currently working on rendering out individual props, wireframes and texture sheets. [Edit] I'm also going back to the Hand Painted environment as there is still one texture that isn't mine (it's small, but I haven't yet replaced it yet).
I'd love critique on the website, the work, suggestions on what I can add, what I should take away, what I should work on, etc.
The website is: paulsvoboda.net
Here is a quick preview:
Thanks a lot.
Replies
Other then that top notch quality
The only feedback I have is on the resume. The font is sampled too small or something and is hard to read. it looks like you typed it larger then downsampled it. Also I would get rid of the UPS assistant part. Lastly I think putting an objective in your resume looks amateur (for some reason college professors always suggest adding this) and its totally unnecessary since people can see what you are all about from your work.
On your first scene, having the night-time shots show when you hover over them is a bit distracting. Instead, put them all together at the end. Lastly, have each picture clickable to a larger size and show larger previews of your textures.
I would have to agree with the above post, and also suggest holding off on the characters for now. If you need to show more work later, you can have those as backup, but for now, sell yourself as an environment artist, because you have the talent for it. I'll spare you from my "environment guy that won' let go of character artist hopes" rant for now, but let me say that you have several very strong pieces that show excellent composition and an eye for detail, and you will be just fine in that category.
lol, sorry.
The art is great though!
One thing you should do is make it so that you can view/save both the day and night versions of the images. Sometimes recruiters will want to save an image so they can pull it back up easier later and right now there's no way to save the day versions of the images that I could find.
Also I agree a bit with Bear on removing the characters. The stylized person might fine if you give it a pedestal so it looks more like a statue. That other sculpt doesn't belong with these awesome environments in my opinion though.
-high quality work, use high quality images too.
-needs more breakdowns, wires, textures, shots of loose objects
-demo reel is boring, no sound, long static shots, just one environment.
-personally I'm not a fan of the HDR look, it's a bit much.
DESIGN
-blue squares clash with mostly orange content and header
-if there's no about yet, don't have a link for it.
-use this method to make the images switch on hover. This way the hover works instantly and doesn't have to load a second image. It'll also work better to download images.
-I'd also advise you to use DIV elements instead of working with a giant table, as it'll allow you to work more efficiently.
NITPICKS/TECHNICAL:
-your moated grange texture sheet has the 2048 and 4096 in the wrong places.
-Make the resum
Your most impressive scene is of course the Fable Forest, but you are too secretive about how you are creating this stuff, show me your hipoly work and your low poly work, expose your strengths and flaws because if you don't , it leaves a big question mark above the work.
Someone could wonder if you were managing to create the scene with really expensive meshs or something that wouldn't be feasible in a shipped game with platform limitations. If you show people how you did things, you only run the risk of getting open feedback about this work here , in time for you to fix it up before you show it to employeer's.
It's really good to put your cards on the table with this stuff, I can tell by your texture sheets how you work in some regards, but I want to see how you generate this stuff in more detail, when was it zbrush work or max, when was it crazbump or just photoshop, when was it shader trickery, when was it raw polygon mass?
It's not really about doing things the right way, its about demonstrating 'your' way of solving problems as its your problem solving ability that the job will test more.
I would leave the UPS work experience. I wouldn't dress up what you did though, in particular, referring to what you did at times as being in a high stress situation might make a couple people look down on you in that ' you think THAT'S a high stress situation? ' sort of way. Sometimes professionals do that to people who are new to the industry, especially when the applicant's work might be threateningly good compared to theirs.
It's good to just remember you have no control over how many different types of people will be looking over your resume, you can only control how straightforward you are in presenting yourself.
The modeling section is strong, you demonstrate a variety of different types of construction, different hard body forms, thats always good to see. Theres a lot of control and restraint there.
The Demo Reel shows a lot of very subtle movement, it would help to crank up the drama a few notches,I think you are being too subtle and some folk won't notice those little swinging motions unless some of them are stronger.
I think if you hit those things before you go off on the hunt you'd hopefully do really well, its certainly one of the best environment resume's I've seen here lately, you look like you could just walk straight into Big Blue Box already.
Great work
I've already removed the character section. The demo reel portion is not yet complete, I'm using an older video of the environment.
@Snader - thanks for laying that out so meticulously. Really helps and that method for rollovers is great.
I'll rework parts of the resume and change it to text.
@Kevin - Thanks so much for that honest critique. I understand what you're saying and agree. I think the biggest thing I've struggled with in that area is how to present how I work, and over time I've learned new things and changed how I go about things. It's really a small problem.
I'll be putting up more focused shots breaking apart each environment, showing props, wireframes, methods, etc.
@Brandon -
I would add music to the reel, and maybe add your other scenes? Branch animation there is too wobbly, I would suggest masking with vertex colors and animating it by vertex instead of distortion per pixel. The video also doesn't play in HD on your site for me, but maybe that's just the way Vimeo rolls. All very minor stuff in what is a very solid portfolio.
Good luck with the jobhunt!
The only critics will be about the demo reel, the shots looks incredible but I'd like to see more "in-game" recording, with wireframes and textures, not just subtle camera movement.
Otherwise, good luck with your career!
The only crit i got is that the first night shot of the The Moated Grange have a stone or something in the water, that differs in the two shots..
Outstanding!
My only crit is the outside beauty shot of Bag End looks kind of blown out.
Your first painting looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting hehe :P
I'm slowly adding stuff up and reworking my demo reel and hopefully I'll have more time over the weekend to finish it up.
@ Sebeuroc - I agree, I need to rework a couple things with that environment. Thanks.
Is is for a movie?