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YSALEX portfolio thread.

interpolator
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ysalex interpolator
Tried this twice before; got a lot of good feedback.

There was a lot to dislike about my first attempt apparently, so I went back to the drawing board.

Here is my new site: www.yurialexander.com

Comments on content and site much appreciated. The only thing I have yet to finish is the 'detailed breakdown' sections for each piece, but the main portfolio and the subsections are up.

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First thread was here, if you'd like to see where it started and then went, not sure where the second one is, not in my user history anymore: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=94103


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EDIT: whoops. Just found the second thread. I started this new thread because I couldn't figure out where the last one had gone. I just realized that google searching for myself here brought me to dev.polycount, and not actually polycount, so searching for it turned up nothing.

I apologize if this is redundant then, but since this is here I will avoid resurrecting the old one.

Replies

  • Darkleopard
    My first impressions. I hate the dark txt on a yellow background. It looks messy IMO. WHen at work and school etc most people use highlighters to highlight areas in a book and i just hate that feeling on a portfolio website. Maybe thats just personal preference but anyway!

    Second I think a darker background would look nicer, again thats just personal preference but i think it makes your work pop nicer then whites, especially if you have lots of skin colour humans.

    I would up the size of the small txt everywhere on your website. especially your resume page. Not everyone has the best eyes (i myself have bad vision in one) and if people are looking at your portfolio at nighttime which is very possible, it would help to have the txt bigger. I know for me that my eyes get tired and go blurry trying to read small txt at night.

    Other then that your work looks decent! Im still a beginner myself (still in school) so i wont comment to much on that as im sure other people will do a better job. But do love the lion and the two slaves holding up that building. Would be awesome to see that scene textured and finished!
  • ysalex
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    ysalex interpolator
    Thanks dark leopard, some good points, much appreciated.

    Im surprised, last time there was a line to rip apart the site and this time hardly anything. Not sure what's a worse sign.

    Not complaining, I know it eats peoples time to help, just that I'd braced myself for the onslaught.
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Maybe because you have created 3 threads about this and you seem to be ignoring a big part of whats being said :)

    Go back to your first and second thread and re-read whats being said there.
  • ysalex
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    ysalex interpolator
    Sorry you feel that way, but I'm not sure that's fair. It became obvious to me that no matter how much I liked my site, people didn't, so what was impressed on me was tha I needed to make massive changes, most of which I couldn't make to the format i had originally used. So I went back and changed up the entire approach while following some of the things I'd been told, and using the resources provided. Not sure how much more I could have done to get away from the things people didn like.
  • sltrOlsson
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    sltrOlsson polycounter lvl 14
    Maybe because you have created 3 threads about this and you seem to be ignoring a big part of whats being said :)

    Go back to your first and second thread and re-read whats being said there.

    I'm sorry, are you just assuming that or is that your actual opinion? I just think it shows that he's actually willing to make changes.

    Anyhow, I like the colors and what greats me at the first page. I don't know if you benefit from having all that old work in there, it's not really raising your standard. In other words, your more recent work is so much better.

    The most annoying thing though is the speed of the site. It's horrible. It takes several seconds for just one image. Maybe that's just because I'm in Europe or something. (Just presumed that you were American, it doesn't say where you live on the site. BAD)
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Bah, just to echo what they said in the other thread they did not like white backgrounds, although I think it works quite nice on this one, decide your self.

    My critics I think you have that yellow outline on to much, where it says "My Portfolio" it looks ok and maybe to show what page you are on, but I would not use it on anything more.

    The projects breakdown does not load for me, might be what sltrOlsson meant.
    Other thing on the front page I would like 1 big nice presentation photo and when you press that it takes you to the to the project breakdown of that project.

    And I don't know if showing that cigarette pack is doing anything really. 1 more thing would be cool of you finished Akira texture the gun and all that.

    Take care.
  • fearian
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    fearian greentooth
    I really love the site design! :thumbup:

    I say stick the sci fi bust at the top because it kicks so much ass, and give yourself many pats on backs.
  • dii
    Seems pointless to have a menu full of project breakdowns when you could just make it so that if you click the image in the main portfolio it will go to the project breakdowns...

    I don't understand why your navigation is different on every page... the main page is a column of images, your "more images" is a gallery of thumbnails (which doesn't work in Opera btw, clicking an image causes the entire page to hang), and your anatomy page is a slideshow... Just pick one and keep your navigation consistent across all your pages.

    Formatting in your resume blows my mind, you've got three different flavors of huge headers, one of which is color coded, and all of your descriptive text is microscopic. I'd really try to downplay the stylization in favor of making something that is actually easily readable.

    Awesome work though, I agree with fearian that the sci fi bust of the chick should be at the top, it's an excellent piece.
  • Lucas Annunziata
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    Lucas Annunziata polycounter lvl 13
    I would have the space helmet bust up higher. It is leaps and bounds better than the hipster girl. I would also love to see a darker BG on here. The white really detracts from the images. Are there wires for the realtime hero? He doesn't look like he should be 8k tris, and I also couldn't even tell there was a spec map on him.
  • ysalex
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    ysalex interpolator
    I should state that the purpose of this portfolio is to find a job.

    Anyways, lots of great advice here. I've already changed a bit, but there's more to do.

    @darbeenbo & Others -- I moved the helmet bust to the top. People seem to dislike the hipster girl, and it is the oldest piece there, so I suppose I'm going to need to replace it with something new when I get the chance.

    @dii - Lots of good points, thank you a ton. I am going to have to redo the main content body so that all the images will link to their breakdowns, but I agree with you (thinking about it now) that this is a very basic feature and important. So I am getting on that. The navigation thing was just me being 'feature' happy I think, but you are absolutely right in that it should stay consistent. I changed these styles on all the pages.Also right about the resume. I added new header styles and reformatted to something simple and less loud. It looks a lot better now.Thanks for all the input, really helped me nail things down more. BTW, your sketchbook is amazing, I loved every image.


    @Stromberg90 - I liked the yellow, so I was being too protective of it. But you're right, so I changed it up. Now the headers are yellow, and small amounts of text are yellow, but links etc. are not. It looks much better in my opinions, much cleaner. Very much appreciated.


    @sltrOlsson - I will have to remove some of it. I'm thinking about removing the hipster girl. Less is more I suppose. Also thanks for informing me of the speed. I think I am uploading everything too high-res (lossless PNG), which is why it loads slowly (I am guessing). I will do some experiments and try to find a good balance between image size, file size and compression ugliness. Thank you for your time.
  • Z3D
    Hey Yuri nice assets, in my opinion your name should be on left yellow box,
    that's just already say it is your portfolio - can you understand?
    Ham... I lov the hipster girl !
  • ysalex
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    ysalex interpolator
    @Z3D - Thanks. I left it off because I feared it would be redundant with the 'CG portfolio of Yuri ...' directly to the right. Also I'm surprise you like the hipster, most people here seem not too. Not that I blame them. It's the oldest piece there as well, I've considered redoing parts, but all the source files are on an old HDD somewhere.

    Anyways, thanks for the input. I'm still tweaking here and there.
  • sltrOlsson
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    sltrOlsson polycounter lvl 14
    Noooooooooooooo! Don't take away the hipster girl! It's one of your strongest pieces! Srsly! I love it! Though I could live without the "swmall swat" guy, it's not really all that much fun. Sure less is more, just don't take away all the good stuff ;) Put some of the stuff up here and see what people say!
  • mutatedjellyfish
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    mutatedjellyfish polycounter lvl 10
    The pack of cigs just sitting by the hipster girl kind of made me laugh. It's weird just having a prop for prop's sake just sitting there. It's kind of lazy, like you're saying "Oh, yeah, and cigs. She's a hipster, GET IT?!" Additionally her hair just looks untextured, not sure what's up with that. The chromatic effect on that one shot of her just looks weird like you ran a nice screenshot through some photoshop filters.

    The plastic helmet on the sci-fi bust needs much better highlights. Sharper, tighter, and brigther.
  • ysalex
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    ysalex interpolator
    The pack of cigs just sitting by the hipster girl kind of made me laugh. It's weird just having a prop for prop's sake just sitting there. It's kind of lazy, like you're saying "Oh, yeah, and cigs. She's a hipster, GET IT?!" Additionally her hair just looks untextured, not sure what's up with that. The chromatic effect on that one shot of her just looks weird like you ran a nice screenshot through some photoshop filters.

    The plastic helmet on the sci-fi bust needs much better highlights. Sharper, tighter, and brigther.

    Not that it's excusable, but the cigs are there (for better or worse) because the working title was 'cliched hipster', but I got a lot of flak for supposed self deprecation, even though it was just meant to be a joke.

    I tried so hard to get nice highlights on the helmet in Marmoset, but in the end I kept getting messed up lighting results with it. I see people here doing such great renders in marmoset, but everything I do beyond one standard lighting goes weird on me, and marmoset guys don't answer back. Strange shadows, transparency issues, meshes popping though other meshes etc.

    Still, she needs some work, thanks for the notes.
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