Showreel from pros but no wireframe?
interpolator
Here's something I've been wondering about. A lot of the professional character modellers have showreels which do not show the wireframe. Why is that? Is it because everyone knows they're so good , they can do perfect retopology anyway so they just show off the high poly sculpts? I can't really r think of any other reason. But maybe I'm wrong so I'm asking 
Replies
well, you still need give the animators decent loops for good deformation but imo, 80% of character work should be artistic/sculpting and maybe 20% topo and technical stuff to make efficient work.
seriously with the new tools and zbrush updates, at some point topo is going to be very easy create, just a click away from perfect topo!
I think it's purely NDA issues. When you work for a AAA company, your NDA is usually massive, and you have to get every picture you post online approved by someone. A lot of companies may not want to show the wireframes for fear of giving away secrets, or because it could lead to copy cats or whatever.
my 2 cents, at least
you should never play down the importance of a good low poly cage. If you automate the process, then you will end up with very bad/generic deformation and as artists we should be willing to put the work in to make sure our art looks as good as it can in game.
Really I think wireframes on demo reels are not really needed especially if you are seasoned. If you are still new I would still add them in or make sure to link them to your site.
-RO
I can see it being a bit more important for character artists but if you have work in a AAA game that you can see tons of footage/ingame shots of its pretty obvious they have the fundamentals of deformation down. I would say thats a pretty strong pre-requisite for even being employed in the first place. that and the time it takes to render out wireframe passes, composite it, and have it look good is just usually something that isnt really needed once you get to the pro level.
even as an environment artists im not sitting there wondering how the wireframe on most env art looks, its usually a jumble of polies, often times some put there for whatever enging requirement there was and sitting there trying to decipher it when you have a handle on env art is not really super important. like it was nice seeing the wireframe breakdowns of uncharted/last of us scenes but it was pretty much what I thought it would be, the real interesting stuff comes down to textures, shaders and lighting setups.
Too many people don't show wireframes because they suck at modelling, and it's a FACT. Almost all people have one or two nice sculpts in their portfolio, but being good sculpting is not enough for a work, so it's very common to ask for wireframes if we are interested in an artist's service.
NDAs are an excuse... and it's because when a game/work is made public, we can showcase our work. Wireframes, texture sheets, and all that kind of info are part of our know-how. When an artist is hired, we pay for their services, and when we pay for a 3d app... we pay for a license. Don't forget that.
Some studios don't have issues with Zbrush only artists, and more for game art. They have their people just only to do the best job with the low-poly model with the best mesh for deformations and mapping optimization. And of course, you must be very good with Zbrush if you don't want to be involved with modelling/mapping.
Give yourself a favor, show at least some wires/uv maps if you want to be considered for a job.
wireframes - that's more of a pipeline consideration. we also did assume that if you show us a character in shippable quality that it won't be constructed in some weird meshing technique with 500 tiny texture snippets attached, really.
everything else can be learnt and adapted on the job.
i do disagree with the notion that you can just one-click it all in zbrush however. and generally speaking there's a lot of technical stuff going on for game characters to make them shine in the engine. last one you want to hire is somebody who is only comfortable working in the sculpt software. that's maybe what - 30% of the job? what can you use this person for when it's polishing time?
For your reel: show whatever looks best. I think you should include things like wireframes and texture flats on your website for sure, but in the reel itself it's optional. I think a reel is actually completely unnecessary in most cases, unless you're showcasing something like animation or effects.
this exactly. as a game artist your job will be to produce assets that can be put into game. show textured, shaded stuff. make them look the best you can - after all your primary job is to make stuff look cool. i personally don't think it matters if it's shown in a realtime engine, viewport screenshots or rendered offline. it's important that you come as close to shippable quality (i.e. stuff that is comparable to what you can find in today's games).
a wireframe or texture-flats might be requested from a newbie just to make sure but first your folio needs to pass the quality test.
i'd rather hire someone who hits visual quality to be honest. the rest can be force-fed on the job. but you don't want to hire button pushers who get the technical side right but are lacking in the artistic talent department right from the start.
I totally agree.
Personally I would never hire a 'sculpting only' artist. To me its almost as if they purposely want to stay ignorant about the game pipeline. That's not an attitude I want on my team.
Over the course of my career, I've encountered more artists that can sculpt beautiful, complicated things, but even less that can make a proper EFFICIENT low res cage for it. Throwing tons of polygons at your low mesh is not the answer.
Yeah, I'm running an experiment to see how successful I can get disobeying every Polycount truism. I'm gonna crash and burn!
I can't show any wires/texture etc. from any of my works even the game is already released ( ex :GRID 2 ). because of NDA.
Am i alone in this situation?
I totally agree man, I would not want that too, just saying that shape and texturing comes first went it comes to checking out portfolios imo. There is still a good chunk of that person qualification which should be technical. But after a few years, artists can learn that on the job anyways.
For the best chances of getting hired, I would agree that showing good topo and clean UVs is very important as Shiniku mentionned.
Cghub is full of artists showcasing their work, and Zbrush Central too. You may be alone, or maybe, in a small collective that don't know their rights.
Working as Freelance we should don't have that problem. Sometimes there are several points in the contract agreement, more than the needed, and if we don't agree with one or various points, we MUST ask for a change or don't sign the contract, easy.
But, if you work onsite, in a studio, and you previously signed a contract in which you sold your soul to the devil... that's your problem.
A wireframe is not a trade secret of a company