What should be in your portfolio?
admin
I'm helping some students figure out what's missing from their portfolios, so they can focus on what to improve.
I wrote down a list of stuff I look for when evaluating new hires. I'm sure I'm missing some things. What do you look for? Any help is appreciated.
EDIT: latest version is on our wiki... http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PortfolioContents
What an Art Director is looking for when evaluating a game artist:
Animator
Didn't get to these yet.
Effects Artist?
User Interface Artist?
Generalist?
I wrote down a list of stuff I look for when evaluating new hires. I'm sure I'm missing some things. What do you look for? Any help is appreciated.
EDIT: latest version is on our wiki... http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PortfolioContents
What an Art Director is looking for when evaluating a game artist:
Animator
- Acting ability... able to convey emotion, tell a story, etc.
- Good camera work, composition, timing.
- Realistic humanoid motion.
- Exaggerated caricature motion (anticipation, squash/stretch, follow through, telegraphing, secondary motion, etc.).
- Rigging, skinning.
- Behavior trees, looping, modular animation systems, effects.
- Ability to nail archetypes: realistic tough man, realistic attractive woman, badass monster, mechanical robot.
- High-poly sculpting (zbrush/mudbox).
- High-poly sub-division surface modeling.
- Low-poly edge-loop modeling, good edge flow, how to make good joints that can deform well.
- UV mapping.
- Texturing, both realistic and stylistic (painterly).
- An eye for color, value, composition, & lighting.
- Ability to inspire, come up with new designs, express ideas.
- Ability to render the same subject from multiple angles, costume variations, different lighting or time of day.
- Can render characters, buildings, environments, props, vehicles.
- An eye for color, value, perspective, composition, & lighting.
- Anatomy, clothing, armor, weapons.
- Quick sketching & silhouette studies, vs. full renderings.
- An eye for color, value, perspective, composition, & lighting.
- Whole environments, interiors & exteriors, individual props.
- Modern urban, pristine nature, rough-hewn primitive town, sci-fi technical.
- High-poly sculpting (zbrush/mudbox).
- High-poly sub-division surface modeling.
- Low-poly edge-loop modeling.
- UV mapping, lightmapping.
- Texturing, both realistic and stylistic (painterly).
- Modular design, modeling on a grid, efficiency & reuse.
- Creates tools for artists. Fluent in one or more coding languages: Melscript, Maxscript, Python, C#, mySQL, dotNet, etc.
- Rigging and skinning: characters, props, environments.
- Understanding of game art pipelines, clean and efficient code, good documentation.
- Physics, shaders, performance tracking, optimization, asset tracking.
- Problem solver, good communication skills.
Didn't get to these yet.
Effects Artist?
User Interface Artist?
Generalist?
Replies
Wear and weathering than makes sense in occordance to the function and use of the material type and context it will be in etc.
As far as texturing goes, how important is procedural texturing or PBR? Things like Substance. It will always come down to the specific company and I imagine a mix is good but do you feel it's leaning any particular way? Is it important for me to consider these at such an early stage in my career?
Thinking specifically about PBR stuff and procedural texturing.. stuff like that.
LordSeb beat me to it!
it feels very, google-ish, where you mention a very broad array of skills that are not specific to an animator, but are skills that one would expect other departments to possess. (I'm talking about AAA studios here, indies? do everything yourself, I get it - am there doing that)
(I'm basing my comments on your list in regards to game animation and not disney)
before I got a job at a AAA studio in Sweden, I had read Acting For Animators and had the impression that, just as you mention in your list, animators needed to be actors of sorts.
turns out it's not like that at all.
I have yet to see a game reel with any camera work. if there has been any, it's been all over the place and with a bright background leaving you wondering what's up and what's down.
camera decisions are - based on my experience, are made by a cinematic director or maybe an animation director.(*1)
to show that one knows how a person moves? sure.. I guess. better yet though, I'd want to see a pre-cleaned mocap take of a walkcykle and a cleaned one.
now you're talking.
a solid grasp on the basic principles is something I can see an AD looking for. that said, I'm not refering to squash/stretch or cartoony motions, but rather anticipation, follow through, secondary motion and weight.
if a reel would lack any proper application of THAT, THEN I'd be worried.
why should the studio even bother hiring a tech animator for? :poly009:
effects? you mean, the ones the fx artist produces?
behavior trees, the ones programmers/designers/leveldesigners take care of?
looping, yup!
all and all, cleaning motion capture requires little knowledge of animation really.
it's more technical than artistic, where the artistic parts are not ones you'll read about in a book but rather come from the animator him/her-self.
such as poses that the mocap actor couldn't achieve, some timing adjustment, some weight adjustment.. other than pushing poses to more extremes, making mocap go faster or slower takes very little artistic skill and I'd assume an anim reel would have to reflect ones artistic skills rather than technical (we didn't need those TA's right?).
the list you wrote, is basically what I was expecting a AAA studio would expect out of me. ended up I just cleaned mocap. sure there were lots of times where I hand keyed stuff. but then you just need to use basic anim priciples together with some sweet poses and you're set. especially if it's pre-vis before mocap.. doesn't even have to look proper then!:poly142:
(1)
assuming you're writing this list for students, who would fill their anim reel with loops and other game play related animations I don't see the point of an art/anim director turning down their application because they lack proper - or any, camera work in full lenght cutscenes.
All this stuff came straight out of my head. So all the blame is mine.
With the actor thing I meant that animators should get inside their character's head, understand motivation, backstory, etc. Isn't motion influenced by internal thinking? Knowing when to add a hesitation, etc.
Mocap is a different ball of wax tho. Sounds like your job isn't much fun.
I used this guide back in my student days. Hopefully it can add
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014812/Killer-Portfolio-or-Portfolio-Killer
Also thanks Mask_Salesman and unit187, good things I can add!
But for now, a good artistic eye and the ability to implement are still the two top skills, and everything else kind of comes behind those. Once someone has those, the other stuff can be taught on the job.
Level designer? Game designer? Audio? Code?
I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this thread
This could turn into a beautiful skills tree infographic.
Art Director doesn't evaluate those. I'm teaching game art, so just artists at this point.
I'll add this to the wiki eventually. People can add/edit if they like.
Thanks for giving some info on that
-Bios/pics of yourself are unnecessary to me, and could end up hurting you. Linkedin link at the most in my opinion.
-Old demo reels
-Sketchbook (if it's not related and/or not good)
-School projects (ok if you're just starting out maybe)
-Other industry work such as graphic design
Even though I agree with a lot in that PDF and totally respect the vets that created it, I can't say I agree about showing a wide variety of styles for character art/environment art. Some character artists on here that I follow (Gav, Hazardous, Josh Singh, etc...) have a very specific style to their portfolios, showing focus. While the subject matter of each character is different, the overall style is pretty similar throughout. But because of the quality of their work its obvious they understand realistic anatomy, weight, pose, surface materials, etc..
I think it comes down to tailoring your portfolio to a specific company and making your own statement as an artist. I've gotten some feedback about my portfolio at GDC that it lacks a 'personality' so to speak, it doesn't carry my artistic brand. And I've been working to remedy that.
Good point adam, will try to prioritize into "must haves" vs. "pluses"
One thing I want is brevity, tl;dr and all that. I think a "don'ts" list belongs in another place.
Big caveat here... one guy's opinion, lots of differing opinions out there among the people hiring, etc. One size does not fit all, blah blah blah. Will add this somewhere.
Ability to render a concept image into 3d art/game space (I don't ever see this enough)
Competent understanding of material pipeline and terms
Dedication to improve (keep making stuff and post wips on a blog or something. It's nice to see people continually improving and working at the craft)
One question I'm really interested in hasn't been answered yet though - what should a generalist have in his portfolio?
- traditional background at best / strong 2D art (graphic design) skills
- very good at creating icons, the more vector knowledge the better (illustrator)
- very proficient with colors, values, perspective, composition, & lighting and presentation in general
- good knowledge about fonts and their usage
- moderate layouting & composition skills
- decent understanding of UX and menu flow
- often flash knowledge is also wanted
- VFX, 3D, Engine knowledge is a plus
Graphic designer should be about the same just without the UI things
and more of the rest I would say.
A UI Designer or DesignerArt crossover needs to be
a lot more proficient with user experience, layout, flow
and more technical skills to provide mockups, know flash,
a little coding at best
Well, even though it's illegal to discriminate based on age, sex, race, etc.. (in the US at least) it still happens even if it's subconscious on part of the person hiring you.
After all your not just displaying what you can do but your also selling a skill set that an employer essentially "needs" to get their project done.
Yup. Just let the art speak for itself.
Yeah, i totally agree. I guess I'm just saying keep a critical eye if you're going to post wip/sketch stuff. That really goes for everything you post though!
But really, you need to be chasing down those leads yourself, not waiting for others to contact you. Even long-time professionals need to keep reaching out to find new work. IMHO of course (like every post on every forum, haha!)
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PortfolioContents
So yeah, sculpts are nice and all but if i look at portfolios, i now look if there is any proper clean modelling involved.
about the character list
so thats 2 realistic human characters and stylized monsters and robots? because texturing wise it's realistic and stylized, but realistic humand with stylized textures would make them stylized, not realistic ^^
Afterall I want to see great art in portfolios, realistic or stylized, if it is good i can find a way to use a person in a production, we have realistic or stylized games, i don't mind the one man band type of guys but i also don't mind specialists I can only hire for specific tasks.
Clean modeling, yep, maybe I should move the lowpoly modeling up higher in the list. Add something about clean topology.
Software engineering practices, thank you, will add.
Also as an Environment Artist I try to convey story and tone through my work. I think that a piece of artwork that is technically great is, exactly what it is, great. But a piece of artwork that is technically great AND that conveys principals of DESIGN, STORYTELLING, MODULARITY, COHESIVNESS, ETC are EXCELLENT. That stuff is extremely important as well. Showing that you know more than modeling is so important. Ligting and Texturing are skills that I pride myself with knowing and could possible come in handy at some point.
I try to focus on having Full environments but with detailed props that live within them,
breakdowns of what you have done and experimented with during your projects. Concepts, ideas, workflows.... if you have done the work, do yourself a favor and show that you knew what you were doing and show that you can explain your process.
Also, specifically for Game-Artists, showing that you know how to put your content in an engine is IMPORTANT. No one wants to see maya or zbrush captures. Presentation goes A LONG way and part of that is showing that you are willing to take the time out to learn a new engine and master it. And then, once you get your render throw your name on that B and while you're at it, give it a nice subtle border or you know, anything to show you're not a boring person just grinding out work. Have fun with it! Keep it professional, but show that you CARE.
As for the site itself, the less amount of clicks the better. From the home page of my folio you can get straight to the environment AND breakdowns with one click. Pretty much anything that matters on my site can be achieved with one click. That is important to me because I've seen busy AD's skim over hard to navigate folios.
Clarity is also important. I see too many folios with tiny ass thumbnails that I can't even discern.
Only put your best work! This is something that I could learn to do better as I have a ton of work to show and feel bad at the prospect of taking some of it off.
TLDR; just be diverse and show that you do have the skill-set to be successful in the industry. Convey tone and story through work, show it off, and make sure your site is clear and easily accessible. Don't forget to include a link to your resume and linkedin as well.
Art Directors tend to get tunnel vision when they're deep in their project's aesthetic.
Good example even though they're gone. 38 Studios was looking only for painterly style work. If you had rocking realistic work, nope. You had to prove you could rock the painted style. Which makes sense, since that's exactly what they were doing.
Blizzard has a similar proclivity for the majority of its studio work... be an excellent painter, and you'll get noticed. Jessica Dihn comes to mind.
I completely respect that sentiment and actually, for the most part, I do agree in the broader sense.
I just really believe in working on the the style you are most passionate about. That work will align with MANY studios, not just one. If you are going for a painterly and stylized look because you want to work for Blizzard, that style would apply to many other studios as well. But if you are passionate about more than one art style, I really think showing that you are versatile enough to do both really doesn't hurt. I think it's the tunnel vision you mentioned as well as a bias against versatility... some people take the same attitude towards versatility as they do towards generalists (flakiness, un-focused, etc.)... and overall I think that is ill advised. Versatility is never a bad thing in my opinion.
In the narrower sense, I don't agree. How am I going to pay my big-boy-bills if all I'm trying to do is get into one studio? I don't do game art because I love one company, I do it because I absolutely love the craft. I hope that my favorite studio will one day pick me up (NetherRealm Studios) but if they don't I am MORE THAN happy to work elsewhere (at their sister company, for now) as I perform the tasks I love, keep pushing myself to learn more, and work with people I care about.
Sorry to get off-track...but again, in that broader sense I do absolutely agree. Work on art that you love and care about and the rest will come.
Bah not my field ignore me haha.