[Portfolio] - Chris Zukowski - Environment Artist

chriszuko

Hello everyone, my name is Chris Zukowski and I just graduated Full Sail University under the Game Art degree program as an environment artist.

As you can probably guess I am currently looking for a job, but I am still welcoming any critiques on my site/portfolio/projects.

Here is a link to my portfolio. [EDIT (old url doesn't exist anymore)]
http://chriszuko.com/ Chris Zukowski Demo Reel

Thanks!

[EDIT] Posting the demo reel at the time just to show growth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTed8R-lV1U

Wonkey

Very nice portfolio, I especially love the Abandoned Factory. Sorry I don't have anything constructive to add. Good luck man!

Dan!

Grats Chris! You've done some great work. I look forward to seeing more- good luck on the job hunt.

Razgriz

Hey man,

You showed me some of your stuff at evolve CG a few months back, wandering around the job fair room. No major crits on the work, I think it all looks pretty great. The site itself I found rather confusing to navigate; once you get off the main page, the messy navbar doesn't add much, and the amount of quality work you have should all be in one place, like it is on the homepage. I would also ditch the 3d and 2d portions of the site - there's barely anything there, and it doesn't nearly match the quality of your environment work. Also, I had a couple serious loadtime problems on some of the pages and lightbox implementation.

Welcome to polycount, and best of luck on the job hunt.

chriszuko

Thanks everyone for the replies so far.

I have gotten a few critiques on the navigation and I minimized it down some. If you click on the pictures on the portfolio page it takes you to each scene. Maybe I should make the area where it says that a little bit bigger? I'll go ahead and keep changing stuff around to try to make it a bit more simple.

Also Razgriz can you be a bit more specific as to what pages are laggy .. pictures etc. I try to keep each image under 200kb so that it is web friendly through lightbox.

Thanks! I appreciate everything so far.

chriszuko

I just updated my portfolio a little bit .. I took what Razgriz said and got rid of the 2d and 3d sections of the navigation bar.

Portfolio

I still don't have an issue with the lag on lightbox, so i am still waiting on which images specifically from Razgriz.. can anyone else test that for me. Not sure what else to do.

Thanks!

beancube

Heya Chris, i like your work dude! Very promising for a recent graduate.

Make the Portfolio section page the 1st page im greeted with!
Your home page right now is a waste. Remove the Environments Section too. As i can access all the environment overviews and subpages from the Portfolio page.

Get some break down shots, textures - hipolies watever.
Keep it up !

chriszuko

Thanks.. It may take me a bit to find out how to do that with wordpress, but I'll get it done. Also, the break downs are coming along slowly but surely as well.

No issues with the lag though? Maybe it was an internet connection problem?

chriszuko

ok well.. that was a fair amount easier than I thought it would be.

New Portfolio

I made the home page have exactly what the portfolio page is and removed the extra navigation links.

Also, can someone look at my breakdown sheet layout and tell me their thoughts.
It feels like I am missing something, but i don't know what.

Jeff Parrott

Looks great Chris. Great site and work man! Once you click on a scene it'd be great to just have the large shots on a page people can scroll down. Also dump the lightbox if you do that. No need. The site is a little slow for some reason. Watch the jpg file size. Smaller is good, but quality is important. It's a balancing act. Congrats on graduating too!

chriszuko

Ok ... I am gonna have to toy around with that a little bit.

Thanks for the tips!

beancube

100x better man!

Now its just straight Boom! your folio.
The lighbox stuff was fine for me this morning. Last nite was a bit slow. But tbh i dont use it anyway - i just rightclick open in new window. As i like to be browsing while a set of images load!


Your model breakdown is missing 1 thing - A wireframe for the Asset. Delete the far right 4packed texture set. No need for the duplication. Replace with a wireframe.
It would be nice to show your HI-poly assets too.

Tbh, work on your normal mapping - that alien probe normals aint nothing to look at.

cool dude!

Shogun3d

Definitely agree with beancube. Very easy and simple, you have giant thumbs, takes you straight to your work and really shows off how nice your pieces are. Nice work, very competitive work especially for a student. Good luck!

primativ

Great demo reel! Can you explain your lighting setup on the abandoned factory?

SouthpawSid

Great stuff. I can relate! Good luck, and keep pushing until you land something. You've got good things ahead of you!

achillesian

epic reel

Cooljay

Demo Reel is amazing. You really did put in a 110% effort here.

chriszuko

Thanks Everybody, Sorry I've been busy for the last few days.

Primativ: as far as the lighting setup for the abandoned factory, I have a directional light with 3 bounces in the lightmass volume, and I have a point light that adds a blue tint to dark areas with 2 bounces. Everything else is a sphere fog volume at a very low density.

beancube: Thanks for the critique on the sheet. I'll go ahead and work on that in a little bit. As far as the normals, all of the normals for the alien probe were generated with heightmaps and crazybump. Very simple, but the rocks were made in z-brush and have way better maps, once I get situated I'll go ahead and add more.

Thanks again everybody, I really do appreciate all of the nice comments and helpful critiques!

holyjewsus

Each composition is really great, so are colors.

chriszuko

Thanks! Much Appreciated

chriszuko

I forgot about this thread! I'm digging it up and posting the order of portfolio videos just to keep a record of growth on here. Its ... crazy to see this stuff though! 7 years ago

2012 Project Copernicus 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9nvnrP0j8U

2013 zPipemaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9kyQCIyOV8

2014 The Machine Polycount thread here if anyone is interested in the progress of it from start to finish https://polycount.com/discussion/119041/wip-sci-fi-cave-environment/p1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYFwCfANXzg

2015 / 2016 Super Grav Bot ( Corona SDK Madness   ) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xA0QFbP1o

2017 Army Game Studio UE4 Shenanigans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpQpH-F4iZA

2018  Mothergunship UE4 Shenanigans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEh_6XMF4jY

Ok now this thread is updated! Should I move this stuff to the top? Idk