Portfolio help (trying to make it awesome)
polycounter lvl 4
Hey guys,
Im new to this forum and have been directed here by a guy called Tyler Noiles who works for Other Ocean Interactive. He recommended me here to help my portfolio get better and said you guys could help.
As it stands my portfolio is not great, the texture maps are awful, the scenes are too dark and im in the process of updating them and making them better. I am also adding new work to it later today from my final year project which will go up very soon
My site it www.benhearndesigns.webs.com
Any tips, advice, criticism (good and bad), thoughts on my work would be massively appreciated.
Cheers guyyyysss
Im new to this forum and have been directed here by a guy called Tyler Noiles who works for Other Ocean Interactive. He recommended me here to help my portfolio get better and said you guys could help.
As it stands my portfolio is not great, the texture maps are awful, the scenes are too dark and im in the process of updating them and making them better. I am also adding new work to it later today from my final year project which will go up very soon
My site it www.benhearndesigns.webs.com
Any tips, advice, criticism (good and bad), thoughts on my work would be massively appreciated.
Cheers guyyyysss
Replies
Here are some ideas for the church scene. Polygon distribution in some areas looks low enougsh to be for omething like mobile imo while other places in the scene seem to go decently high. I'd take a minute and decide what the goals for the scene are. Is it a scene meant for a mobile game with everything baked into the textures or are you going for a console/pc type of look. Once you nail that down you'll have a better idea of what the polygon distribution should be.
The main thing that makes your church scene look good is the lighting and bloom/fog. But I can't help but feel that its trying to hide something. Try to get the scene looking good without the bloom/fog and then add it back in later. Your scene will look that much better for it. I'd revisit the textures on the benches and other objects/walls as well. The scene is begging for some ambient occlusion, whether you opt for screen space AO in an engine or bake it all into the textures I think it will really help.
Looking forward to seeing the update later today. Keep up the good work and good luck!
People want art shoved in their face, they don't really want to read where it came from first. Its fine to have that info available, at the bottom or something, but don't try to make them read it first by having it at the top.
Some personal feelings about your porfolio
- Your lighting needs the most work of all. Pick a scene, or make a new one and make the lighting great. If you have bad lighting, you cant see your models which makes them irrelevant. You aware of this though but im mentioning it anyway.
- Have a clear focus and tons of reference images for everything you make. That church looks destroyed, How and why was it destroyed? These questions let you plan your environment with more purpose then just a abandoned, damaged church'
On the porfolio page, take out your little snowboarding picture and put it in the about me page. It doesn't belong on the page dedicated to art and it takes tons of space away from where your art could be.
And for personal taste (this is just me)
Its about 10:30pm here and ive had a long day, those dark picture on a white background make my eyes struggle to see whats there
Some good examples of portfolios layout wise
http://www.torfrick.com/
http://matthewvia.com/index.html
Heaps more, go check em out
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=92838
artquest kinda nailed it for the church environment.
I have a suggestion as far as your website layout goes. If your going to only have one page with all your work on it like this (which is a totally acceptable way to present work), I would suggest having less images of each thing. You have to scroll down pretty far to get past the church environment. You could probably lose a few beauty shots that are kinda simliar (I'd probably remove the one with the 3 small windows at least) and you could possibly put your lectern and pew props on a single image.
Basically, you don't want to bore a potential employer so much with the same amount of work that they don't care to see what else you have. Personally, when I'm making an environment I always have a primary composition in mind (and a handful of secondary angles usually pop up midway through), so I can focus on getting everything I want people to see in a single shot if neccesary.
Don't sweat your work not being great. Realizing that you have a lot of room to grow is always good (and should never go away). Just keep putting up new work and replacing old work as you go. Make sure you focus on having a couple high quality pieces and get rid of the weaker ones as you go along!
Good luck...also I'm looking forward to seeing the Nascar thing...sounds pretty cool.
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Do you think its worth putting the video on my portfolio instead of having all the about me text?
I have uploaded the Nascar track images and am still waiting on the videos etc. to come through from my mate so you can see the game in full swing.
Texture maps to come next!
Gonna need you to sack up and do more work if this is how you feel. Being one's own worst critic is good. It's the key to success, in fact. As long as you think you have something you can get better at and work at it, you are gonna make it. However, you've also acknowledged it needs work.
Your models are wasteful. You are using massive amounts of polygons for something that you could describe in very few. Every arch, every piece of rubble. It's all too wasteful.
The textures are almost all photos that are being blasted out with filters. As such, they look pixelated and muddy.
The absolute best thing you can do for yourself at this point, is to start a new scene. Start from photo reference and bang out something that looks great. Post pictures along the way! This forum has a multitude of amazing artists who will critique everything you have to show--go through the wringer! Get guidance and sponge up the wealth of knowledge that will be dumped on you.
This may all sound a bit harsh--but you want that job, right? You've got work to do. Make moves!
Not harsh, quality criticism im getting on it!
UPDATED PORTFOLIO:
www.benhearndesigns.webs.com
i have added straplines to my images, also a couple of texture maps ive added.
I was just wondering the image that has the wireframe merge into it, should i leave it like that and have another like it or have the image normal then the wireframe next to it?
Cheers for the help guys!
I have finally figured out how to link up images on here! The image that i posted with the trucks that has the wireframe merged into it, i have put it on my portfolio, how does this look?
Should i keep it or should i put up the full original and then the wireframe next to it?
Here is one of the lightmaps i used in game what do you think?
I have changed the layout of my portfolio and given it a new look what do you think?
Point taken, someone else mentioned the straplines as tacky the other day so i need to change them as well
Or is it only certain things you should texture in UDK??
After a few hours here is what i have, what do you think?
Yeah sure honesty is good, hit me.
I have concept art but they are nothing but sketches i did (terrible ones at that) and a few photos from the net and some photos i took of a real church for the last church project that i did
I have also scaled it down a little bit from the last lot of screenshots to make it seem a little bit more claustrophobic instead of a wacking great cathedral type thing
Images are in the attachments, what do you guys think?