[Portfolio] - Damian Lazarski - Environment Monkey
polycounter lvl 12
I will cut the bullshit and get right to the point.
I made a website
http://www.damianlazarski.com
It's still quite basic and I'm planning on adding much more content. Some of my older assets need some additional polish (you see what I did here? :poly142:) before they can be uploaded. My resume page also needs a bit more love, but I'm way too tired to do that today. However, I have a lot more free time now that the exams are over, so I will keep chruning out art like a mad baboon. I've been slacking off for way too long.
But regardless of it being very WIP, I would still love to hear some honest and harsh critique. Grind me to death guys, I would never get to this point if it wasn't for this place :thumbup:
I made a website
http://www.damianlazarski.com
It's still quite basic and I'm planning on adding much more content. Some of my older assets need some additional polish (you see what I did here? :poly142:) before they can be uploaded. My resume page also needs a bit more love, but I'm way too tired to do that today. However, I have a lot more free time now that the exams are over, so I will keep chruning out art like a mad baboon. I've been slacking off for way too long.
But regardless of it being very WIP, I would still love to hear some honest and harsh critique. Grind me to death guys, I would never get to this point if it wasn't for this place :thumbup:
Replies
Purely from a graphic design standpoint, the only thing that I would tweak is the kerning on your last name in the header; those first 3 letters are especially bunched up.
Killer stuff, legit as heck!
Let's make a baby.... (just don't tell Ferg)
Just noticed from your resume page that you're still a student - even more awesomer
cholden: Thanks a lot! I'm a huge fan of adventure games, so I'm really happy to hear that's reflected in my works.
Rurouni Strife: Thanks mate. I still think I should do more detailed breakdowns tho
bbob: Cheers man. I'm glad you like it!
Orchidface: Aye, Witcher II looks pretty sweet and I absolutely loved the first one (I played the original version with polish voice acting which is hilarious xD). I'm not sure however, if I will be settling down my country anytime soon. I would like to live in at least few different countries before I die. I love to visit my friends and family, but I had my share of Poland for now
Kevin Johnstone: Thanks a lot Kevin! I've been inspired by your work from the moment I started posting here, so receiving some praise from you feels great. As an answer to your questions; I left my country when I was 18 and then worked in a restaurant for several months, before I realized what I really wanted to do. Sadly, I have no professional experience in the industry. But I am really hoping to change that as soon as I can.
Sebeuroc: A reall valid point. My name is as hard to pronounce as it is. No reason to make it even harder
Mio: Thanks a lot mate!
haiddasalami: Thanks. Yes, I did change the lighting a bit. I am still not entirely happy with it but I might tweak it later on. I find lightmass to be rather tricky when working with such small and cramped environment and I feel like I still need to learn more about it in order to get the results I want. Btw, I removed the marks; I copied my education section from the cv I did for school and forgot to get rid of them ;P
crazyfingers: I wish! Magicka is an awesome game. Thanks mate.
kaburan: Thanks a lot Will!
TychoVII: Cheers mate!
Jonsnow: Thanks
attattattack: Cheers. I'm happy to hear that you like it.
Heartless: Good point, I will try to rename it to something like art just to make things clear enough. About dropbox; I wouldn't worry about it too much. The whole website is only 4mb and I don't expect thousands of views. Thanks!
Wahlgren: Haha, took me ages, but here it is :poly142:
pand0r: Thanks a lot!
popngear: Cheers. Getting a job would be pretty nice. Cheap canned food gets boring after a while
Firebert: We could always have a threesome, ha! Thanks mate
Mr Bear: Yeah, some flythroughs would be nice. The cellar might be a bit too cramped for that, but I would certainly love to do something like this for the riverside. That however, will have to wait until UDK gets some new terrain tools. Performance is a bit bad at the moment since all foliage had to be placed by hand.
nullfed: Cheers. I got to addmit, my student responsibilities got a bit in my way last year, but tell santa I'm gonna be a good boy this year and do more art.
jeffro: Thanks a lot Jeff
dtschultz: Cheers. Keep in mind that some of the foliage looks a bit iffy upclose, but that's something I'm planning to fix
JasonLavoie: I had yours bookmarked for a while. Now we can call it even :poly142: Thanks Jason.
Sorry for the huuge wall of text, but I really wanted to thank each of you personally. I wouldn't make it this far without your help guys :poly136:
For your cellar envio though I feel it still needs a little bit more of a splash of color. I know you added the green there but it seems to blend with all the other cool colors too much. Even the lights are a pretty cool warm color. Its a wine cellar so maybe a barrel or two that is open with some exposed grapes or something. idk I'm just thinking outloud. I see you have some spilled wine which is bringing a little red in there but I honestly didnt notice it on my first two viewings. Really like how the scene was made with just a few nicely created pieces and the mood it is giving off.
For your river scene I love how you broke up the river bank so well with the rocks and plants. Not something I see enough. Also your plants are scattered well around your environment with nice clumps here and there instead of just an even distribution all over the place.
I think it would have been better to actually have modeled out the trees yourself instead of using speed tree. I know using speed tree isnt just click click click and bam you get an amazing tree but for a portfolio piece I find it a little lame when people use it over modeling themselves. I personally prefer it to only be used in a production environment if you use speed tree there. But again this is just for me personally. Scene looks great overall and thats all that really matters.
For your texture/high poly shots on your environments. I would have liked to see maybe a rock texture mixed in there on your river scene and some textured sheets on your cellar scene instead of just a bunch of sculpts.
Anyway great looking work. Cant wait too see what you turn out next!
and really wish u good job as Environment Artist brother, i'm from Slovakia ;]
The presentation is clean and pretty.
Only things I would like to see is the wireframe of your works. Maybe the triangle count too.
Beside that, I love them!
Autocon: Thanks Anthony. I completely agree on the cellar, I have played around with levels in photoshop trying to fix the issues you've mentioned. I think that it looks much better now (colourwise), but I'm still planning on redoing my lighting setup later on just for the hell of it :poly142: I will certainly add some more props later on.
I have added some texture sheets in the cellar section as you suggested and a breakdown of props used in the riverside. I will try to post more textures later on; I will have to make some smaller rocks first to fill the empty UV space.
Jonsnow: Thanks a lot! I used to know a girl from Slovakia. It's funny how similar our languages are.
megalmn2000: Good point about the wires. Unfortunately, I don't know if there is a way to create shaded wireframe shots in UDK, but from now on I will try to add some whenever I render something in max.
Bookmarked!
Pix: Dzieki
Rens: Thanks Rens!
Alberto Rdrgz: Cheers mate, thanks a lot!
JacqueChoi: Thanks mate :thumbup: I'm flattered.
I still feel like I need to push for a little bit more props; I've got that urban building I need to finish since I wan't to add a bit more variation to my folio.
Things that stand out are:
Your use of (well thought out) modular parts
Well crafted textures and shaders (the blend Mat adds a good sense of uniqueness too)
A good use of reference and making your scenes feel 'real'
Strong lighting
Strong modelling
Clear and well explained through your comments
Great effort! Get that site out there and land a job
However, everytime I go to the site it pops up that there was a server error because the server sent no data.
Using chrome.
If I refresh it loads though. Would be a shame for someone to miss out on it for something like that.
http://www.damianlazarski.com/
I finally gotten around to updating my folio. Added some of the work that I made over the past year, cleaned up the layout and got myself a proper host instead of using Dropbox (which was causing all these issues that others have reported).
http://damianlazarski.com/
Let me know if you spot any issues guys!
Thanks
-I'd add screens to to the oazis scene. not everyone has time to watch videos.
-stylized rocks. they don't look convincing imo, texture feels very metallic. also, i think hand painted texture would be more suitable for their stylized forms.
http://damianlazarski.com/images/med_cellar/breakdown_1.jpg
walls look overexposed
-"materials" section could use info about texture resolution.
It's also really cool how with the cellar you built this coherent environment that feels quite polished, with what looks like just a small amount of assets.
Fomori: Thanks!
Blaisoid: That's exactly the type of crits I was looking for. Good points all around, I will try to make corrections as soon as possible. As for the rocks; yeah, it's an older piece and you are totally right. I will rework the diffuse once I get some time.
Xoliul: Thanks! I'm a huge fan of your hard surface work so I really appreciate it.
BluPanda: Cheers!
Seaseme: Thanks Tanner!