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Simon Trümpler Demoreel WIP - need YOUR opinion!

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SimonT interpolator
Simon Trümpler Demoreel 2009 RELOADED

http://vimeo.com/6145334

The Sacred2: Addon is out now so i can show you my work:

At minute: 02:05: Cursed Forrest Assets
At minute: 02:40: New Fx Stuff

Replies

  • Canden Picard
    Dude your work looks great, I love What you do with simple objects. The planetarium was brilliant. I love your weapons, something like a mace could make want to play whatever game its going in. The timing was ok at first but towards the end of the bow presentation it kinda quickly cut after you showed the specular and It was just a little brief in the others as well. So Maybe a little bit longer. I actually enjoyed the fact that there was no music in the video, maybe you could throw in the sound effects though. The only thing though Is the ingame rain drops look a little bit too big. But other than that You rock!
  • eric.
    Yeah man! Looking really great! Everything went a little too fast though, I really wanted to see the finals a bit longer. All the weapons looked awesome.

    Good job man!

    **EDIT: Forgot, I liked it when it was no music actually. If you want to have any, I think you should go with some magical ambiance or something. I also think the composition was nice, and as I said, the final renderings could have been a bit longer.
  • Ben Apuna
    My opinion is that you shouldn't bother with a demo reel. Why? you may ask. Well the HR people are probably going to skip right over it as they don't want to spend the time watching demo reels these days. Too many people applying for work and not enough time to go watching demo reels, seriously you're lucky if you can get them to click through a few images on a website.

    Unless you are an animator or you really want to showcase some gameplay of a level you've designed I think you are better off with high resolution stills on a website somewhere.

    Speaking of which I went over to your site and think you should increase the size of your thumbnails at least 2X if not more. Your Unearthly Challenge and Sacred 2 work is good and should come first. If you really must have a demo reel just link to it or have it on a separate page. You might want to consider reclaiming the vertical space used by the links on the right hand side of your website to use for larger thumbnails. You might want to make your site a bit wider in general too for the same reason. Larger thumbnails of completed environments is probably what will catch some HR person's eye. Kind of like the large banner image at the top of your site. Except it's ruined by that huge logo sticking it's tongue at me and the words "JUST ANOTHER ONLINE PORTFOLIO" which probably puts you lower in the eyes of HR people looking at your site. I sense your attempt at humor here but it just comes off as unprofessional and makes it seem as though you do not have confidence in your work.

    Sorry if that all came out as too harsh, I just felt the need to point out where you may be taking a not very ideal approach. In other words, your work is good it just needs better presentation. Good luck with your job hunt.
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    I see waht Ben is talking about but I disagree. I mean we watched it didn't we?

    I'm very impressed with not only the work you displayed but the way you compiled your reel. Very well done, very efficient.

    If you can get a potential employer to actually watch the whole thing, I think they'll be very impressed!
  • crazyfingers
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    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    For where you're at now, you definitely want to keep the demo reel. Your greatest strength is that you're doing the whole shebang, from texturing to animating. Can't show off the animation in a screenshot, the best part of most of your models. You can tell a lot of thought went into the entire process.

    That said most companies wont hire you on being well rounded. They want to see your greatest strength and want to see that you're dedicated to that strength so you'll be a steady asset to the team.

    I'd suggest choosing your specialty and focusing on that for a bit, seems like it would be animation or environmental art. You really gotta push one.

    Fun portfolio :D!
  • L3XICON
    I agree, that the demo reel is impressive in that it conveys the complete package you present to a potential employer in a very appealing visual manner. I think you can use your portfolio space to really focus on your strengths as crazyfingers suggests and have that lead to your demo reel to wow an interested studio :) good luck!
  • warby
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    warby polycounter lvl 18
    i think the demo reel is good it spends enough time with each prop and all highlights the extra thought that went into each one of them without getting too slow or boring.
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    i like how you have most of ur objects animated. it enhances your props. good job.
    I have a question. how did u apply the waterdrops effect? like i mean wut format did u use for the material and how was it set up?
  • cowboyorange
    can you add a back button when you are viewing the larger images. I'm so lazy to have to go up to my browser to click that. Would make navigation much easier.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    demoreel wip v1.5

    http://vimeo.com/5901112

    Changelog

    1.5
    • I added a 15 seconds short overview for people don't have much time to watch all the wireframes, textures, ...
    • Background graphic instead of just gray
    • One static position for text like "final", "wireframe", "highpoly", ...
    • I deleted the description screens between the assets and embedded the text in the lower left corner

    Canden Picard
    Thanks for your great words! I'm happy that you like my stuff. Hehe ok i think you are right with the size of the raindrops...hm...i would say..that have to be because...hm...the player can better notice that they are there...hehe.

    eric.
    Thanks man! My idea is: hold the movie short and if you like to see my work longer, you can see pictures on my website...i don't want to bore someone.
    Yeah i'm not sure about music but if i add it, i will choose smooth stuff.

    Ben Apuna
    Thanks for you clear words! I like to get feedback like that. First i didn't like to do a complete reel. I just rendered my animated objects and that should be enough i thought. But than poeple said, hm a bit too short and also they was interested in seeing wireframes. So i added wireframes and textures for these objects. Then i saw...hm...now i can also add some effects..long story short: it developed to be a real demoreel.

    I've increased the size of the thumbnails on my website - what do you think? I will also delete the grinning face, later.

    Pope Adam
    Thanks! Cool that you like the composition :)

    crazyfingers
    Maybe you are right that companies just wanna specialized people. But my expierience in the company i worked is: when the company isn't that big, you have to do all. And what i like to show with this demoreel: i can do a 3d asset + animation for you, if you want.

    L3XICON
    Yeah thats the plan: catch the people with the reel and then they can visit my website...i hope it works :D

    warby
    Thanks man!

    onionhead_o
    I love to animated environment stuff :) Was a lot of fun doing that :) The "setup" of the drops was made by a programmer. I just did the tileable/animated texture! The ingame screen is just captured by me. The texture was for the raindrop-on-water-shader.

    cowboyorange
    I will try to find a better gallery plugin :)
  • Sage
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    Sage polycounter lvl 19
    Nice work. It seems pretty solid to me. I really like the environments. You might want to show that off first.

    I think you need to rework your site a little. i would get rid of anything that can be seen as negative. The just another portfolio site comment makes you look bad and so does the sad loading face. You only get one chance to make a good impression so make it count. The last thing you want to do is give the impression that you have issues.

    Nice work.
  • Ben Apuna
    I took a look at your updated site. The new thumbnails are much better, but I think they could still benefit from being even larger. Check out PhilipK's site

    http://www.philipk.net/

    I'm not a huge fan of his site being so narrow but I think the thumbnails he is using are a very good size. It's very easy to identify what you are looking at, the thumbnails are so big in fact that you almost don't need to click on them to see the full size images - though who wouldn't with quality like that? :).

    Another good portfolio site is by Chris Holden

    http://www.chrisholden.net/

    See how the first thing he shows off that huge cathedral shot, it makes a great first impression. You've almost got that with your Unearthly shot banner image, just make sure when you update it that it links to the larger image you have.

    After thinking about it some more, having the demo reel is a good idea because it showcases some environment/prop/texture animation. You might want to consider focusing the reel on the animated stuff alone. The last time I was looking environment type animation was a bullet point on many job ads looking for environment artists. Just don't neglect your website as I still think it will be the first thing that any interested employers will look at.

    Good job, just keep polishing your website.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Thanks guys! I reworked the website-banner and resized two of the thumbnails. I think for the small props it should be ok that the thhumbs for them are smaller.

    What do you mean about textures in the demoreel? Is it useful to show them? Or is it impossible to see how good i used the texturespace? Some say: you can fake width huge values of texture bleeding or stuff like that and to see how good the space was used isn't enough in the reel.

    Maybe i should delete the texture parts?
  • Ben Apuna
    The new big thumbnails are great :)

    I still see the face while your page initially loads though, that's not good.

    It shows up when I load http://www.simont.de but not when I load http://simont.de/dokuwiki/doku.php

    About textures:

    I think showing the animated raindrops was great.

    I'm neither for or against showing standard textures on a demo reel, but sometimes they get shrunk down and messed up pretty bad by video compression and resolution. So you got to watch out for things like that.

    If you're worried about people thinking you're somehow tricking them about UV space usage just overlay your UV templates onto the texture sheets. You UV layouts look ok to me though, no signs of crazy texture bleeding.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Thanks four your feedback Ben, you are helping me so much with that! Now i changed also the small face during the loading sequence and i wrote a mail to my website provider about the possibilty to link directly to the dokuwiki without having this redirect.

    Yeah i will definitely show the raindrops - it's important for me to show how my workflow was. But maybe i should delete the texture presentation of the other assets. Hm...not sure. So hard to find the perfect balance between too long and too short reel.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    demoreel wip v1.6

    http://vimeo.com/5964037

    Changelog

    1.6
    • Deleted the 15 seconds overview, wasnt such a good idea i think
    • Added more props to the prop-screen
    • reworked the start of the reel
    • tweaked a bit around with the time i show textures
  • Ben Apuna
    That's a nice touch with the loading preview thumbnail instead of the face when your page loads. It's too bad you can't just immediately load up the website under http://www.simont.de, without redirecting and the loading screen. Perhaps you should consider hosting your site with a better company that allows you to really use your domain name properly.

    Maybe when you send out your application emails to companies just link them directly to http://simont.de/dokuwiki/doku.php, it's not a nice easy to remember address but it will get them to your page without the redirect loading screen.

    I just noticed you still have one face left to get rid of.

    simont_favicon.jpg

    Your new reel looks good, just hope you can get people to watch it.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Hi Ben! I already spoke with my internet provider. The problem is, that i use a wiki und a subfolder as website. The also gave me a tipp how i can link directly to the wiki, but then the wiki stopped it's work.

    Oh noooo, more faces! Hm so, know it's gone! :D
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Simon Trümpler Demoreel 2009

    http://vimeo.com/6031842

    After a lot of work and time i finished my reel! So happy :) I hope you like it! Huge "thank you" to all guys giving me feedback and all the others for watching the reel! I posted my wip steps on cgtalk, game artisans and polycount and from here i got the best and most usefull feedback! THANKS GUYS!
  • Ben Apuna
    Cool Simon, I'm glad to have been of help :) Good luck with your job search.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Thx Ben! Without you the reel would have very less of its quality!
  • uneditablepoly
    Looks awesome, Simon! Too bad I stumbled upon this thread so late but after watching the first version and the final it really looks like you made a lot of good changes. The reel is great to watch in the final version and shows your work off very well, so you've accomplished your goal! ;D Good luck in finding jobs!
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Excellent reel. I followed your Unearthly entry last year and it was a great piece (it still is btw).

    If ever you wanna make a small tutorial on how you made those rain drips animations+normal maps in 3Dsmax, it would be great share.

    Good luck
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    uneditablepoly
    Cool Nick btw ;) Yeah the reel got a good "evolution". Its great to see how such things "grow". Thx for your feedback!

    ParoXum
    Thx for the feedback! I hope i can do the unearthly this year too!! I did this "tutorial" ... do you need more information?
    tutorial-raindrops.jpg
  • ParoXum
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    ParoXum polycounter lvl 9
    Thanks ! I guess the rest of the work (normal map) is done using PS too ? Good workflow, will try that sometime when dealing with water ;)
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Yeah exactly. I just rendered single frames (black/white) and used a photoshop action to convert them via nvidia normal map tool.
  • PeterK
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    PeterK greentooth
    That's great work. I particularly like the rain effect. Nice mini-tut for tiling also.
  • carlo_c
    Really nice, love the stuff you did for sacred 2. Your reel was well put together too.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Thanks guys for the great feedback! Makes me happy that the reel is liked by you :D
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Simon Trümpler Demoreel 2009 RELOADED

    http://vimeo.com/6145334

    The Sacred2: Addon is out now so i can show you my work:

    At minute: 02:05: Cursed Forrest Assets
    At minute: 02:40: New Fx Stuff
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    I seriously like all of ur stuff. I like the fact that almost everything is animated
    how did u rig and animated the generator that was breaking apart?
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    onionhead_o
    Thx. I just cutted the generator in several parts, and added one bone per piece. Then a animated the destruction by hand. More interesting is, how i got it running that a) the body gets bulged and b) the glow turns off. Simple: it's a second, downscaled body. When the generator goes down, i scale the original down and the damaged up during one frame.

    It's bad technique but our engine couldn't swap models so i had to do this work around.
  • Moshbeast
    this is really great work love it :D the lighting specially is fantastic. did you do the lighting in an engine or in max?
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Moshbeast wrote: »
    this is really great work love it :D the lighting specially is fantastic. did you do the lighting in an engine or in max?

    cool! a comment after 2 year :D thanks!

    The lighting..i guess you ment the light of the church scene? It' a rendering out of 3Ds Max. It was the first Unearthly Challenge and there was it allowed to use a rendering :D Later it had to be in an game engine.
  • royalshark
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    royalshark polycounter lvl 10
    I really loved watching your demo reel, especially the animated finished models each one seemed to have so much character and I could actually in vision what sort of world they'd be in . I feel really inspired and pumped up to do my own reel now!
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    royalshark Thanks for your comment. Originally it wasn't a reel. I was too lazy to make a real reel and only did some movies of my animated objects. But as i had these i thought maybe it would be better to add some other stuff too. In the end it grows and grows and got a real reel :D

    Good luck for you real! Feel free to post a link here to your portfolio/tutorial.
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
    holy zombie thread!

    Yep, Simon your art is still awesome.
  • SimonT
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    SimonT interpolator
    Pope Adam Thx you very much! Hehe never heard the expression "Holy Zombie" before :D
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