Chris Barnes - Portfolio Improvement Thread

Skillmister

Hi guys and girls.

Decided it's time to make one of these threads to better myself and give a bit more direction to my work.
Also to get as many crits and pointers as possible.

Portfolio: www.chris-barnes.com

I've removed a couple of things for the time being as they are too weak to show in my opinion and need more of an overhaul than the rest.

I think the layout is fine, although i may make it a grid rather than a scrolling view. As i've learnt from the years of reading PC though, it doesn't really matter as long as it's simple.


Current WIP



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ysalex

Pretty cool looking really nice. My only crit is that the ducktape on the door seems to uniformly distributed. Mostly I think it's that the lengths of tape are all the same, and they are all the same distance apart.

How long did this take you. Have a high-poly?

Skillmister

It's taken about 2 weeks in total i think, although not all time spent on it.

Bullethole ref. You are right about the tape. I also may spread them out a little just for the sake of looking better.


High poly

DWalker

The tires seem to fill the entire wheel well. I'm also not certain why the wells extend straight from the outer shell, unless you were trying to keep the polycount low; they typically are a bit wider once inside the shell.

Also, if this is a static object, consider flattening the bottom of the tires a little.

Skillmister

Yeah i'll fix that for sure. I thought it might look ok without it but it is somewhat obvious. Also need an exhaust pipe!

BradMyers82

looks cool man, I like it!

What are you rendering that Winnebago in and what type of shader are you using?

Skillmister

BradMyers82 wrote: »

What are you rendering that Winnebago in and what type of shader are you using?

It's in Marmoset for now.

Working on a couple of props


Did a bit of clean up on the Bago textures, added an exhaust etc.

DWalker

I think this is what you're going for with the chair -


If so, notice that the back and seat are made from interleaved horizontal and vertical webs. Clever use of your normal and alpha maps would let you do each with a single quad, but given today's concept of "low-poly" modelling each web is certainly possible. Also note that the webs are not quite opaque - you can clearly see the white band under the blue sections. Also, note the cross-bar in the fold between the backrest and the seat - this feature is common to all folding beach chairs with a similar design.

If you really feel ambitious and don't mind spending the polygons, consider an older chair where the webbing has become loosened or stretched - many of the best models out there are not bright and shiny but... "well loved".


In the model you have currently, the normals in the seam between the seat & back seem odd - the darker line just doesn't look right.

djgardner

Would love to see your maps for the RV, also maybe another environment? Apart from that, and what you already listed above, it looks good so far.

Skillmister

DWalker wrote: »

I think this is what you're going for with the chair -
In the model you have currently, the normals in the seam between the seat & back seem odd - the darker line just doesn't look right.

I guess i should make it clearer in future Neither model is finished, i have lots planned with the chair. Thanks for the feedback though. The thing is all of these chairs are different, for example the ref i've been basing mine on has no weaves, the cross bar at the bottom is behind the fabric, etc etc.

Skillmister

Will do the rest of the detailing in nDo2 i think.

ayoub44

Awesome work, good luck with the porfolio

PaulP

Hey man the work in your portfolio looks cool, but the website itself could be improved to better show your work. Atm the (website) background is not working with the foreground portfolio pictures. Below is your background colour with the foreground colours on top:



Consider using something like a brighter background with a dark foreground to show-off your pieces. This will make them stand out more and present them better.

Also some of your frontline images themselves could use a more interesting background. You have this beautiful image of your 'Onett Stage - UDK' with a deep and colourful background, and then these dull, flat backgrounds to support your other images. It kind of sucks the life out of them.

You have some very nice pieces in your portfolio, it would be a shame if the presentation did not do them justice

Alicce

Hi Chris!
I like the works on your portfolio but I agree with SCB you should review your colour scheme I would suggest a black/very dark background so that all the attention is given to your pieces!

Regarding the Winnebago (it kind of reminds me the one of breaking bad..) why don't you add a layer of dust through a nice blendmap, so it will look like ot has more "story" like it has been parked somewhere for a few days and the dust has gathered on it. You can also create a ground with deserty sand plus dry bushes and grass blades planes, shouldn't take long!

Keep up the good work!!!

Skillmister

I'll make a proper reply to the feedback tomorrow

First pass bake, plenty of niggles to fix but i'm quite pleased with the result especially as i baked it all at once for a change.

Skillmister

Got round to the texture. I will go back and do a bit more by hand later, depends how visible some of the ott dDo dirt is visible in engine, as a quick pass i think it looks pretty good and after all it's not a hero prop.



Going to start work on the environment now then back to some more props.

OddEyes

really liking the attention to detail

Skillmister

Decided after all to try Cryengine so here's it thrown in with a few extra props



Slowly figuring things out..


How do i get rid of the obvious blur that's going on?

mr_ace

u can change the depth of field options in the time of day menu under advanced options

e-freak

nice reminds me of the breaking bad episode where they have to start the van with the improv-batteries

AlexCatMasterSupreme

mr_ace wrote: »

u can change the depth of field options in the time of day menu under advanced options

This, you can also add real DOF through a flow graph and it has Bokeh and whatnot, this is the standard TOD blur. If you can't see it in the TOD you need to click "toggle advanced options".

e-freak

Just create a camera and add it to TrackView. In Trackview you can add a Depth of Field control track in there and set the viewport to look through that camera.

DWalker

The terrain texture is really letting you down - it tiles badly in the distance, especially on the hills. If you're using a texture with multiple levels (e.g. dds), transition to a medium tan for the final levels; otherwise, if it's a static scene, you can change to a different texture in the distance. If neither of those options work for you, you'll need to re-do the texture.

Skillmister

Thanks guys. Looks much better without the DOF for now. I'll figure out some proper settings when the scene is more populated.

DWalker wrote: »

The terrain texture is really letting you down - it tiles badly in the distance, especially on the hills. If you're using a texture with multiple levels (e.g. dds), transition to a medium tan for the final levels; otherwise, if it's a static scene, you can change to a different texture in the distance. If neither of those options work for you, you'll need to re-do the texture.

It's also both not my texture and the first thing i could find to slap on the terrain that looks slightly closer to what i'm going for than grey :poly124:

Thanks for the crits though.

Skillmister

Woo updates Been busy with moving and some actual work but i'm back to job hunting and folio times now.



-Figured out Cryengines terrain and created something that fits reasonably well what i wanted in world machine. Needs some refining on the cliffs and height painted on the flat plains obviously but it's a better start.

-New ground texture although i need to work out how to combine a terrain base texture with detail textures and actually get the colour i'm looking for. Will be blended with a couple of other textures.

-Working on some foliage and rocks etc now so i can get an idea of how it looks with the terrain broken up a bit.


Also a high poly thing i'm working on every now and then just for practice.

Skillmister

Started on the first clump of grass. Pleased how headache free that was to get working compared to UDK.. I'll be colour adjusting things later.

Not sure how to get a more random distribution when painting it as vegetation, any values i'm missing?

Skillmister

I've spent the past couple of days fighting with terrain texture painting/blending (some of my troubles can be seen here) but i think i'm finally starting to get some where. Still not entirely sure how to get my textures the colour i want them as i've read that using the colour changer in the layer painter is bad practice..



(grass is obviously WIP )


I've also rearranged my portfolio after some advice on what my strongest pieces are http://chris-barnes.com/