Resume tip #1: Including your location is a must. Home address isn't necessary.
This is so important, I am recruiting 3 positions at the moment and unless you can come in for interview easily and work without us having to get you a visa then it's not going to happen!
Can we stop using that lightbox image viewer thing, too? Drives me mad. Just link to the big images, it's cool, I have a browser with tabs, I can handle it...
It's probably just personal preference but I think the light boxes are just nasty, I also find that they don't always allow for right click save and they are still constrained to the size of your browser screen. So If I want to view someone's image in all its glory on my Ipad I can't as it still won't go bigger than the screen size I'm using. Some artists have huge shots when you click on their smaller image and it's great.
I also think that a wall of large images just allows for sluggish website.
why ? i think going to big pictures and then have to go back
via click or backspace is more annoying then just clicking in the dark area..
i agree with having just big images and scrolling down is the easiest way to show your pictures
But it takes over your screen and you're forced to wait until the image loads during some silly loading bar anim. At least with tabs you can just middle click a bunch so they load in another tab while you keep viewing the website...
blogspot did me ok for a few years you just have to not "blog" on it and it can be bent to your will, I would change the lightbox viewer if I were going to tinker with it but I am switching to dunked pretty soon..i've been on the beta too and its really nice to use....just waiting for the catch
*edit* switched to dunked...the only thing I'm not keen on is that I haven't figured out how to retain the name of the image in the right click save name yet, cos I always put my folio address in the image title.
I don't know if it's wix in general that makes it how it is, but your site is pretty horrible to navigate.
Takes quite a while to load.
Unnecessary transition animations.
Multiple clicks to get to your work.
Work pops up in awful viewer boxes that take even longer to load.
Images cant be right click > saved.
Yeah I thought my site was alright to navigate before until I looked at some other examples and they get straight to the art directly. I didn't consider the potential load time and everything else.
Also yes Wix doesn't allow you to save images, it took me a while to figure that out. I wasn't aware that recruiters will be saving images so I didn't really think of it as a problem. I was in the process of redesigning my portfolio site, but I don't even anything worthwhile to show. I'll probably change it in a week or something and onto something other than Wix.
why ? i think going to big pictures and then have to go back
via click or backspace is more annoying then just clicking in the dark area..
i agree with having just big images and scrolling down is the easiest way to show your pictures
I want to look at one beauty shot and then at wireframes, high res and maybe texture flats - preferably with them all loading at the same time.
Not wait for every image in someone's gallery to load, one at a time, resized in some floating window that they've customised the buttons on to be non-standard...
It feels like "hey look, my website's fancy" rather than "here's all my awesome art".
Sites like blogspot aren't setup properly for game art portfolios, they are primarily blogs. Someone that is hiring just wants to see your work efficiently and quickly. While there are some themes that make it better I have seen very few that don't have you digging through a bunch of older posts to see work.
Wix actually isn't so bad once you choose the right style, however it has gotten a bad rap for the slow to load flash templates (an even some non flash ones) that many choose to use which are more about how the content is presented rather than the content itself.
Carbonmade is cool and simple, but some people complain that there is little customization and stuff, but I think it does a good job for game art portfolios.
I just rolled my own wordpress theme, but many don't have the skills or the time to bother with this, in retrospect my time could have been spent actually doing art.
I feel this is fixed with a little knowledge of HTML
for examply, on my blog/portfolio I used tables to make it easier to navigate my images , and this is with a VERY limited knowledge of HTML
You made a conscious effort to have 2 posts, one with your Halo stuff and one with your reel and other portfolio stuff which is good (though a design with the larger thumbs would be better). I have also seen a few people that posted in this thread that have a blogspot portfolio that is setup really nicely, like http://mathewo-3d.blogspot.com/ if it weren't for the domain on the links, you wouldn't know it was a blogspot site, no timestamps, dates or any of that bloggy stuff.
The problem is most will just change the header of their BlogSpot site, and post work to it like a blog. So someone that is hiring ends up having to hunt for stuff, or worse doesn't even bother going to page 2.
Web Design Rule #1: Never use tables for layout. Tables are for tabular data. Try viewing a table layout on a smartphone, you'll see why it's bad for layout and file size matters on mobile networks. CSS also allows for a more fluid layout that adapts to the screen it's being viewed on, tables do not. Tables add bloat code that will slow your page loads and if you have a data cap on your hosting, you want to keep file size low. Tables also makes your site harder to index on search engines because they ignore anything in within tables.
I've seen the anti-table crowd show up plenty of times on Polycount but I haven't actually seen it hurt anyone. I had Andrew's portfolio open on my computer and a passing coworker stopped to look at it, job done!
Best portfolio ever that probably melts smartphones and people with datacaps: B1ll's wall of art
I think the problem with blogspot though is that if you need to know HTML to design a decent layout it starts to beg the question why even use Blogspot? I suppose not costing anything to host is always a plus though.
Man, this is a great discussion. I'm really surprised my Blogspot comment is getting that much attention, and I think it's awesome that all these other websites (including CGHub and Weebly) as portfolio alternatives are coming up! I'm also learning more about the free vs premium constraints of some of my other recommendations, like Vimeo and Carbonmade. Thanks a ton, guys, this is incredibly educational for me.
That's what I was thinking, which begs the question what is he watching?
That is as hilarious as it is an excellent point. However, I've long since disabled all my Google history and have a variety of Chrome extensions that block virtually all tracking cookies. Specifically I use Disconnect, IBA Opt-out, Privacyfix, and Ghostery.
In any case, if I was going to watch porn, it wouldn't be softcore or on Youtube.
Best portfolio ever that probably melts smartphones and people with datacaps: B1ll's wall of art
Actually that page plus all of the thumbnails is less than 5 MB. That's about as much as one or two streamed MP3s. It's not a super heavy page. Mind you, it could still be a lot smaller if the images used more compression since it is all greyscale:
And you could use online compression tools like http://www.pngoptimizer.com/ or http://www.smushit.com to get even more compression. Such online tools can often manage to even nibble off a few kilobytes more without affecting quality/artifacting - probably by stripping metadata or re-organizing existing compression blocks or something.
Doing all this (plus having fairly lean HTML) makes this page only 136 kilobytes small. That includes the html, css, resizing javascript, the photos, favicon and that sticker thing. By comparison, these 3 images together are 129 KB:
...that was somewhat offtopic, so let me tie it back into the thread:
Optimize your site to make it load fast, and use appropriate file formats, file sizes, and compressions.
Hi guys! I just did another TweetBlast on Art Tests. Here that is!
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #1: NEVER be afraid to ask questions. It's expected! However, a) DON'T ask just to seem clever, and b) DO try to ask them all at once.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #2: Follow directions precisely. You'd be astonished how often this DOESN'T happen, and it's completely avoidable.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #3: We give directions, but also read between the lines at what isn't said to add extra polish.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #4: Be tidy. It's as technical as it is artistic. Tidy outliner, clean object and filenaming, organized layer groups in the PSD, etc.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #5: Be on time. If you're going to be late, acknowledge it the *INSTANT* you know you will be late, and politely propose a new date.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #6: Log your time and be honest about it.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #7: Overdeliver, within reason. "Is there a way to jazz this up a little within my creative, time, and tech constraints?"
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #8: Unless they say otherwise, assume the art assets are meant for a realtime game. Construct the assets accordingly.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #9: When submitting, always send a separate confirmation email. FTP uploads don't notify, and large email attachments sometimes bounce.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #10: Think hard about how you distribute detail with polygons and texture. This says a lot about how you think.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #11: Make sure the zipped art test contains ONLY the files needed, not dozens of extra directories or files (.mayaswatches, I'm looking at you).
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #12: If you're asked to provide diffuse, normal, and spec maps... don't randomly just not use them and not explain why.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #13: Don't include files with random names like "SomethingWhatever.tga" or "DammitPleaseWork.jpg" or "OwlsWithDiarrhea.ma"
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #14: DON'T PUT ART TESTS IN YOUR PORTFOLIO! a) It means you failed the test, and b) I've already seen 50 other people do that one, and probably better.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #15: Ask your friends to look over your work. Be willing to accept criticism. Don't make people wonder "did he even look at the reference?"
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #16: Don't let your own self-doubt keep you from finishing or submitting. It's their job to evaluate you, not yours. Stay strong.
I think its a pet hate but I would add: wait a bit before you post it to the internet...I have seen completed art tests on Polycount before we got to see them in the studio they were meant for.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #14: DON'T PUT ART TESTS IN YOUR PORTFOLIO! a) It means you failed the test, and b) I've already seen 50 other people do that one, and probably better.
Wouldnt this be ok if you did pass the test? The m16 ive got in my portfolio now was my test for my current job, and i think it definitely should be in my portfolio because it shows that i was/am capable.
Its nice also to find some people who have their tests (that landed them the job) in their portfolio to see whats comparable. I remember seeing a few people who did that Bungie environment test a while back, and saw that they did get a job based off of it. It can be a good thing to see someone else's test and say, ok.. "so i need to do that or better."
Wouldnt this be ok if you did pass the test? The m16 ive got in my portfolio now was my test for my current job, and i think it definitely should be in my portfolio because it shows that i was/am capable.
At first glance, I'd have no way of knowing that. Realistically I'm only going to be looking at portfolios of people I want to hire that aren't employed. If you have a successful art test in there, if I'm seeing your folio to consider you for a job, it's still going to look like a failed test.
That may be too negative a viewpoint on it, though -- think of it less as "omg failed test," and more like "oh, here's something I haven't seen before" instead. If you had to choose between the two, going for the one that doesn't elicit the "oh, yep, I've seen that" response is the better, IMO. Even if the alternative is excluding the test.
At first glance, I'd have no way of knowing that. Realistically I'm only going to be looking at portfolios of people I want to hire that aren't employed. If you have a successful art test in there, if I'm seeing your folio to consider you for a job, it's still going to look like a failed test.
That may be too negative a viewpoint on it, though -- think of it less as "omg failed test," and more like "oh, here's something I haven't seen before" instead. If you had to choose between the two, going for the one that doesn't elicit the "oh, yep, I've seen that" response is the better, IMO. Even if the alternative is excluding the test.
I understand your point but - I think its a little unfair when youve done a lot of work on the test, passed it and chose to go elsewhere.
I had someone look at my naughty dog test on my site and say it was the best test theyd ever seen and that was an ex naughty dog employee and I was ultimately hired at that place instead.
That being said - this is all great info :P and thanks for sharing it I love this kind of info :P
oh man do I hate those "here are 20 big images which will load for 10 more minutes while you'll look at the page" sort of folios. Especially annoying if no width and height attributes are used in the img tags, so the whole page jumps when another image finished loading.
So the question you should be asking is, why take the risk when a job is on the line? Especially when you could, instead, have something in your folio could serve you better in terms of standing out.
It might not be much for you to download, but imagine many people hitting that page all at once. How fast would your data quota burn out before they shut it down for the rest of the month? Even still, on my 30Mbps connection it takes a while to display all of the images. The smart thing would be to break those down into sub pages with thumbnail links to nice hi-res images.
If your servers are burning through data and you need to pay more for the exceeded data, that's definitely a problem, but it's one for your wallet and not one that bothers potential employers. Unless your host literally suffers a server crash but that's only when you get posted on Kotaku or something. It's more a problem of many requests than of lots of data transfers - it's how a DDOS works, too.
Along the same lines, requesting many small images impacts performance more than one larger image. Because you have to send more requests. It's like asking "hey you give me my phone" and then "and my lunch", "and my wallet", "and my notepad" instead of simply asking for your backpack with everything in it. So you wanna combine all HTTP requests as possible. Here's an example:
One image, and you 'crop' it to the right size using background offsets and div sizes in the CSS.
As an illustration of how much impact this can have, I threw Regimbal's site through an analyzer and got this graph:
Where green is the time between the sent request for a file, and blue the time when there's actual data being transferred. You see that there's a LOT of green. It starts off okay, but once there are 6 or so connections, that server won't make any new ones until the old ones have finished transferring.
So you're continuously waiting on files to finish before you can start a new connection. In Regimbal's case I'd put all 8 thumbnails of a row in one image, so you would have 8 times less requests and considerably less waiting time.
Oh and of course the borders of all these similar images should not be in the image, but added with CSS, making the images about 10% smaller.
... maybe I should do a write up on website optimization in a completely separate thread =P. Some time. Some time.
If your servers are burning through data and you need to pay more for the exceeded data, that's definitely a problem, but it's one for your wallet and not one that bothers potential employers. Unless your host literally suffers a server crash but that's only when you get posted on Kotaku or something. It's more a problem of many requests than of lots of data transfers - it's how a DDOS works, too.
Along the same lines, requesting many small images impacts performance more than one larger image. Because you have to send more requests. It's like asking "hey you give me my phone" and then "and my lunch", "and my wallet", "and my notepad" instead of simply asking for your backpack with everything in it. So you wanna combine all HTTP requests as possible. Here's an example:
One image, and you 'crop' it to the right size using background offsets and div sizes in the CSS.
As an illustration of how much impact this can have, I threw Regimbal's site through an analyzer and got this graph:
Where green is the time between the sent request for a file, and blue the time when there's actual data being transferred. You see that there's a LOT of green. It starts off okay, but once there are 6 or so connections, that server won't make any new ones until the old ones have finished transferring.
So you're continuously waiting on files to finish before you can start a new connection. In Regimbal's case I'd put all 8 thumbnails of a row in one image, so you would have 8 times less requests and considerably less waiting time.
Oh and of course the borders of all these similar images should not be in the image, but added with CSS, making the images about 10% smaller.
... maybe I should do a write up on website optimization in a completely separate thread =P. Some time. Some time.
More of a problem is that images that small shouldn't be as large as they are 40k+ for a lot of them, even doing save for web in photoshop at 80%(which is overkill for thumbnails) is mostly under 15k.
Saving images in rows is only going to make it a PITA when it comes time to actually update the site with new work.
More of a problem is that images that small shouldn't be as large as they are 40k+ for a lot of them, even doing save for web in photoshop at 80%(which is overkill for thumbnails) is mostly under 15k.
Saving images in rows is only going to make it a PITA when it comes time to actually update the site with new work.
How so? Copy-paste top row, Swap out image url and detail hyperlinks 8 time, done. It's not like you have to update with every new thing you make.
How so? Copy-paste top row, Swap out image url and detail hyperlinks 8 time, done. It's not like you have to update with every new thing you make.
Well probably won't add multiples of 8 things at a time so the 8 row images start getting confusing. Then the newer stuff won't neccesarily be the best, ie:the stuff you want to been seen first, so that further confuses things. Want to change layout but still use the same thumbs...
These things while small, make it tedious to update the portfolio thus making the user less prone to doing so. I have seen people who I know are badass artists, with portfolio's whose most recent work is from 2005.
But those tables do impose an unnecessary lag that can be eliminated with superior methods. You have to change the tables for each and every page when you do a redesign. It makes it harder to index on search engines because they have to wade through the markup to find your content. You can't cache tables either. Those tables have to be loaded for every single page on your portfolio. It also makes more work for the render engine, making the page render slower because it has to wait for the entire table to load before displaying content. There's more to it than just data transfer. It makes visual consistency much harder as well as updating the layout or even just updating the content would be a lot of work.
With a CSS layout, you can have one set of rules for every page that only has to download once and making changes to that changes every page. It's easier to maintain, easier to keep consistent, and it's faster.
Creating sprites is a good idea, but it would still be good to make them smaller. Fewer thumbs per page and some sub-pages would be better too.
Bill's folio is even worse than tables. He has inline styles embedded in his markup for every single image and that's wrapped in its own individual div. He could have made one rule in a stylesheet and applied it to every element with classes, saving tons of markup and making his page load much faster. As it is, each rule has to be loaded and rendered one at a time along with the image, yuck!
Your folio is a single image centered with lots of excess markup. I can't imagine the SEO is that significant. :poly124:
yes, I almost just considered locking the whole thing with a password - it's a tool that I send to potential employers when I want them to see it. Worrying about SEO and proper CSS & HTML is just web designer stuff... if it's a web design portfolio, of course worry about it. This isn't a public facing corperate website or social media page, it's a portfolio that's meant to be looked at by a handfull of people that you send it to.
In all the years Jon & Chris have been complaining about shitty portfolio sites they have never once mentioned viewing the source and recoiling in horror at the lack of CSS.
I don't particularly feel like becoming well versed in something that I only use once every 5 or so years.
sorry, I just here the same arguments on an annual basis and it's how a good friend of mine ended up with a CSS webpage he can't figure out how to update.
yes, I almost just considered locking the whole thing with a password - it's a tool that I send to potential employers when I want them to see it. Worrying about SEO and proper CSS & HTML is just web designer stuff... if it's a web design portfolio, of course worry about it. This isn't a public facing corperate website or social media page, it's a portfolio that's meant to be looked at by a handfull of people that you send it to.
In all the years Jon & Chris have been complaining about shitty portfolio sites they have never once mentioned viewing the source and recoiling in horror at the lack of CSS.
I don't particularly feel like becoming well versed in something that I only use once every 5 or so years.
sorry, I just here the same arguments on an annual basis and it's how a good friend of mine ended up with a CSS webpage he can't figure out how to update.
SEO isn't just "web designer stuff." They don't talk about it because they like their own voice, it's a marketing tool. So is your portfolio and the goal of every marketing tool is to get you noticed. The best way to get seen on the net is good SEO. You're competing will billions of other websites for eyes so you can get noticed, why wouldn't you want to make yourself more visible? When people do a search for a game artist, does your name appear on the first page of results?
You wouldn't disregard Zbrush because you can do it in 3DS Max just as well. CSS and SEO are to portfolios what Zbrush is to high poly sculpting.
I'd compare it to making your own guitar if you're a musician, it's cool if you dig that but quit telling everyone else to.
Although if you have advice on how to use SEO to make sure I don't show up for recruiters, I'd appreciate that. If I freaking wanted to work on the next Call of Duty I'd apply myself, I don't need a recruitment agency taking a cut of my paycheck. Also, how the hell does a recruiter look at a portfolio full of stylized medieval fantasy art and think modern military shooter.
I'd compare it to making your own guitar if you're a musician, it's cool if you dig that but quit telling everyone else to.
That's a misapplied analogy. It's actually like making your guitar out of cardboard and plastic vs making it from alder and maple. It's the difference between doing something well or just cutting corners. You can take both instruments to a concert, but one is clearly going to perform better than the other.
If you think it's a waste of time, that's your prerogative, but don't disparage me for thinking it isn't.
Replies
This is so important, I am recruiting 3 positions at the moment and unless you can come in for interview easily and work without us having to get you a visa then it's not going to happen!
Seconding this.
why ? i think going to big pictures and then have to go back
via click or backspace is more annoying then just clicking in the dark area..
i agree with having just big images and scrolling down is the easiest way to show your pictures
isnt that just like blogspot etc then ?
I also think that a wall of large images just allows for sluggish website.
But it takes over your screen and you're forced to wait until the image loads during some silly loading bar anim. At least with tabs you can just middle click a bunch so they load in another tab while you keep viewing the website...
*edit* switched to dunked...the only thing I'm not keen on is that I haven't figured out how to retain the name of the image in the right click save name yet, cos I always put my folio address in the image title.
I had to.
Sorry.
Yeah I thought my site was alright to navigate before until I looked at some other examples and they get straight to the art directly. I didn't consider the potential load time and everything else.
Also yes Wix doesn't allow you to save images, it took me a while to figure that out. I wasn't aware that recruiters will be saving images so I didn't really think of it as a problem. I was in the process of redesigning my portfolio site, but I don't even anything worthwhile to show. I'll probably change it in a week or something and onto something other than Wix.
Not wait for every image in someone's gallery to load, one at a time, resized in some floating window that they've customised the buttons on to be non-standard...
It feels like "hey look, my website's fancy" rather than "here's all my awesome art".
I feel this is fixed with a little knowledge of HTML
for examply, on my blog/portfolio I used tables to make it easier to navigate my images , and this is with a VERY limited knowledge of HTML
http://andrewseverson.blogspot.com
You made a conscious effort to have 2 posts, one with your Halo stuff and one with your reel and other portfolio stuff which is good (though a design with the larger thumbs would be better). I have also seen a few people that posted in this thread that have a blogspot portfolio that is setup really nicely, like http://mathewo-3d.blogspot.com/ if it weren't for the domain on the links, you wouldn't know it was a blogspot site, no timestamps, dates or any of that bloggy stuff.
The problem is most will just change the header of their BlogSpot site, and post work to it like a blog. So someone that is hiring ends up having to hunt for stuff, or worse doesn't even bother going to page 2.
Aren't recommended videos based on your YouTube video history?
Web Design Rule #1: Never use tables for layout. Tables are for tabular data. Try viewing a table layout on a smartphone, you'll see why it's bad for layout and file size matters on mobile networks. CSS also allows for a more fluid layout that adapts to the screen it's being viewed on, tables do not. Tables add bloat code that will slow your page loads and if you have a data cap on your hosting, you want to keep file size low. Tables also makes your site harder to index on search engines because they ignore anything in within tables.
That's what I was thinking, which begs the question what is he watching?
Best portfolio ever that probably melts smartphones and people with datacaps: B1ll's wall of art
Really solid blogspot portfolio in my opinion.
I think the problem with blogspot though is that if you need to know HTML to design a decent layout it starts to beg the question why even use Blogspot? I suppose not costing anything to host is always a plus though.
Oh, and I gotta address this one:
That is as hilarious as it is an excellent point.
In any case, if I was going to watch porn, it wouldn't be softcore or on Youtube.
Softcore fat Indian porn?
I think that would be funny if anything.
Actually that page plus all of the thumbnails is less than 5 MB. That's about as much as one or two streamed MP3s. It's not a super heavy page. Mind you, it could still be a lot smaller if the images used more compression since it is all greyscale:
And you could use online compression tools like http://www.pngoptimizer.com/ or http://www.smushit.com to get even more compression. Such online tools can often manage to even nibble off a few kilobytes more without affecting quality/artifacting - probably by stripping metadata or re-organizing existing compression blocks or something.
Doing all this (plus having fairly lean HTML) makes this page only 136 kilobytes small. That includes the html, css, resizing javascript, the photos, favicon and that sticker thing. By comparison, these 3 images together are 129 KB:
...that was somewhat offtopic, so let me tie it back into the thread:
Optimize your site to make it load fast, and use appropriate file formats, file sizes, and compressions.
Also
Like they say in teacher's college, education is a two way street. You can learn a lot from your students.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #1: NEVER be afraid to ask questions. It's expected! However, a) DON'T ask just to seem clever, and b) DO try to ask them all at once.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #2: Follow directions precisely. You'd be astonished how often this DOESN'T happen, and it's completely avoidable.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #3: We give directions, but also read between the lines at what isn't said to add extra polish.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #4: Be tidy. It's as technical as it is artistic. Tidy outliner, clean object and filenaming, organized layer groups in the PSD, etc.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #5: Be on time. If you're going to be late, acknowledge it the *INSTANT* you know you will be late, and politely propose a new date.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #6: Log your time and be honest about it.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #7: Overdeliver, within reason. "Is there a way to jazz this up a little within my creative, time, and tech constraints?"
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #8: Unless they say otherwise, assume the art assets are meant for a realtime game. Construct the assets accordingly.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #9: When submitting, always send a separate confirmation email. FTP uploads don't notify, and large email attachments sometimes bounce.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #10: Think hard about how you distribute detail with polygons and texture. This says a lot about how you think.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #11: Make sure the zipped art test contains ONLY the files needed, not dozens of extra directories or files (.mayaswatches, I'm looking at you).
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #12: If you're asked to provide diffuse, normal, and spec maps... don't randomly just not use them and not explain why.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #13: Don't include files with random names like "SomethingWhatever.tga" or "DammitPleaseWork.jpg" or "OwlsWithDiarrhea.ma"
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #14: DON'T PUT ART TESTS IN YOUR PORTFOLIO! a) It means you failed the test, and b) I've already seen 50 other people do that one, and probably better.
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #15: Ask your friends to look over your work. Be willing to accept criticism. Don't make people wonder "did he even look at the reference?"
ARTISTS! Art Test Tip #16: Don't let your own self-doubt keep you from finishing or submitting. It's their job to evaluate you, not yours. Stay strong.
Wouldnt this be ok if you did pass the test? The m16 ive got in my portfolio now was my test for my current job, and i think it definitely should be in my portfolio because it shows that i was/am capable.
Its nice also to find some people who have their tests (that landed them the job) in their portfolio to see whats comparable. I remember seeing a few people who did that Bungie environment test a while back, and saw that they did get a job based off of it. It can be a good thing to see someone else's test and say, ok.. "so i need to do that or better."
At first glance, I'd have no way of knowing that. Realistically I'm only going to be looking at portfolios of people I want to hire that aren't employed. If you have a successful art test in there, if I'm seeing your folio to consider you for a job, it's still going to look like a failed test.
That may be too negative a viewpoint on it, though -- think of it less as "omg failed test," and more like "oh, here's something I haven't seen before" instead. If you had to choose between the two, going for the one that doesn't elicit the "oh, yep, I've seen that" response is the better, IMO. Even if the alternative is excluding the test.
I understand your point but - I think its a little unfair when youve done a lot of work on the test, passed it and chose to go elsewhere.
I had someone look at my naughty dog test on my site and say it was the best test theyd ever seen and that was an ex naughty dog employee and I was ultimately hired at that place instead.
That being said - this is all great info :P and thanks for sharing it
oh man do I hate those "here are 20 big images which will load for 10 more minutes while you'll look at the page" sort of folios. Especially annoying if no width and height attributes are used in the img tags, so the whole page jumps when another image finished loading.
I'm sure I've glossed over some awesome candidates in the past for any of those reasons
valid point.
It might not be much for you to download, but imagine many people hitting that page all at once. How fast would your data quota burn out before they shut it down for the rest of the month? Even still, on my 30Mbps connection it takes a while to display all of the images. The smart thing would be to break those down into sub pages with thumbnail links to nice hi-res images.
Edit: Ha! Those are thumbnails! :poly142:
Along the same lines, requesting many small images impacts performance more than one larger image. Because you have to send more requests. It's like asking "hey you give me my phone" and then "and my lunch", "and my wallet", "and my notepad" instead of simply asking for your backpack with everything in it. So you wanna combine all HTTP requests as possible. Here's an example:
One image, and you 'crop' it to the right size using background offsets and div sizes in the CSS.
As an illustration of how much impact this can have, I threw Regimbal's site through an analyzer and got this graph:
Where green is the time between the sent request for a file, and blue the time when there's actual data being transferred. You see that there's a LOT of green. It starts off okay, but once there are 6 or so connections, that server won't make any new ones until the old ones have finished transferring.
So you're continuously waiting on files to finish before you can start a new connection. In Regimbal's case I'd put all 8 thumbnails of a row in one image, so you would have 8 times less requests and considerably less waiting time.
Oh and of course the borders of all these similar images should not be in the image, but added with CSS, making the images about 10% smaller.
... maybe I should do a write up on website optimization in a completely separate thread =P. Some time. Some time.
More of a problem is that images that small shouldn't be as large as they are 40k+ for a lot of them, even doing save for web in photoshop at 80%(which is overkill for thumbnails) is mostly under 15k.
Saving images in rows is only going to make it a PITA when it comes time to actually update the site with new work.
Well probably won't add multiples of 8 things at a time so the 8 row images start getting confusing. Then the newer stuff won't neccesarily be the best, ie:the stuff you want to been seen first, so that further confuses things. Want to change layout but still use the same thumbs...
These things while small, make it tedious to update the portfolio thus making the user less prone to doing so. I have seen people who I know are badass artists, with portfolio's whose most recent work is from 2005.
growing up on the mean streets of geocities
Also:
ANGELFIRE represent, son!
But those tables do impose an unnecessary lag that can be eliminated with superior methods. You have to change the tables for each and every page when you do a redesign. It makes it harder to index on search engines because they have to wade through the markup to find your content. You can't cache tables either. Those tables have to be loaded for every single page on your portfolio. It also makes more work for the render engine, making the page render slower because it has to wait for the entire table to load before displaying content. There's more to it than just data transfer. It makes visual consistency much harder as well as updating the layout or even just updating the content would be a lot of work.
With a CSS layout, you can have one set of rules for every page that only has to download once and making changes to that changes every page. It's easier to maintain, easier to keep consistent, and it's faster.
Creating sprites is a good idea, but it would still be good to make them smaller. Fewer thumbs per page and some sub-pages would be better too.
Bill's folio is even worse than tables. He has inline styles embedded in his markup for every single image and that's wrapped in its own individual div. He could have made one rule in a stylesheet and applied it to every element with classes, saving tons of markup and making his page load much faster. As it is, each rule has to be loaded and rendered one at a time along with the image, yuck!
Here's a whole treasure trove of resources on building good layouts: http://alistapart.com/topic/layout-grids
Actually the entire site is worth a read. Great stuff there.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Your folio is a single image centered with lots of excess markup. I can't imagine the SEO is that significant. :poly124:
yes, I almost just considered locking the whole thing with a password - it's a tool that I send to potential employers when I want them to see it. Worrying about SEO and proper CSS & HTML is just web designer stuff... if it's a web design portfolio, of course worry about it. This isn't a public facing corperate website or social media page, it's a portfolio that's meant to be looked at by a handfull of people that you send it to.
In all the years Jon & Chris have been complaining about shitty portfolio sites they have never once mentioned viewing the source and recoiling in horror at the lack of CSS.
I don't particularly feel like becoming well versed in something that I only use once every 5 or so years.
sorry, I just here the same arguments on an annual basis and it's how a good friend of mine ended up with a CSS webpage he can't figure out how to update.
SEO isn't just "web designer stuff." They don't talk about it because they like their own voice, it's a marketing tool. So is your portfolio and the goal of every marketing tool is to get you noticed. The best way to get seen on the net is good SEO. You're competing will billions of other websites for eyes so you can get noticed, why wouldn't you want to make yourself more visible? When people do a search for a game artist, does your name appear on the first page of results?
You wouldn't disregard Zbrush because you can do it in 3DS Max just as well. CSS and SEO are to portfolios what Zbrush is to high poly sculpting.
Although if you have advice on how to use SEO to make sure I don't show up for recruiters, I'd appreciate that. If I freaking wanted to work on the next Call of Duty I'd apply myself, I don't need a recruitment agency taking a cut of my paycheck. Also, how the hell does a recruiter look at a portfolio full of stylized medieval fantasy art and think modern military shooter.
That's a misapplied analogy. It's actually like making your guitar out of cardboard and plastic vs making it from alder and maple. It's the difference between doing something well or just cutting corners. You can take both instruments to a concert, but one is clearly going to perform better than the other.
If you think it's a waste of time, that's your prerogative, but don't disparage me for thinking it isn't.