Modeling Portfolio

OlivierC

Hi, my name is Olivier and I have been visiting Polycount for a long time, but never posted because I don't have any experience in game art. I have been modeling for animation for a few years now and would be interested in moving to games. The problem is I dont have much experience in texturing, which seems to be very important in the game industry, where they generaly don't split modeling and shading. I am however experienced in generating normal maps and displacement since we use those in animation too.

I have been working for the past two months on updating my portfolio. I have been following the advices I found here: simple navigation, information easy to find, and make the art as visible as possible

http://oliviercouston.com/

Let me know what you think I should improve. Are there too many images? Is the link to my resume visible enough? Should I keep the social sharing buttons or are they too gimmicky and unprofessional ?

Here are some sample images to tease you, hope they are not too big:

Cactus on Fire

Dude, these are top notch works. Also I really dig the material and render setup you got here.

There are various apps out there to help you with auto-unwrapping the models properly until you can do them by hand. As for texturing, I suggest you do a youtube marathon and read cg magazines for cartoonish texturing. Here's a nice example of the unwrap and texture process of a popular animation.

https://vimeo.com/77399216

I don't think there's anything wrong with the images. And on the contrary, social sharing links are only there to increase the speed of sharing cool finds like this so people dont have to copypaste urls :P

Overall these are awesome. Keep it up !

OlivierC

Thank you for the feedback. The render setup was actually bought from Mike Nash website. I feel a bit ashamed to buy shaders, but they looked so nice, and I thought my models would look better this way than if I spent dozen of hours trying to set up my own.

I don't have any problem with unwrapping UVs, this is a task I have to do, I must deliver models ready to shade and rig. I have some experience texturing in mudbox, I just don't have much to show. I'll do what you suggested, I'm going to start a new personal project and this time I'll try to make textures, using some tutorials

slosh

These models look great! You definitely need to texture some of them though. Still not sure what direction you want to take your career. They are stylized but appear to be cinematic quality rather than games. If you're doing cinematic stuff, you can give really nice highres textures and render in mental ray or vray. If you want to go more towards games, you can make low poly meshes, bake down, and do nice handpainted textures. Either way, the final texture and presentation is going to make a big difference for your future. Your highres stuff is already rock solid!

OlivierC

Those are indeed of cinematic quality because they were made for movies, tv series or trailers. I have never worked in the game insudry but would like to. I don't really know where I stand right now, I just want to move foreward, get a better job, in animation or game, I would enjoy both, I'm just searching now. I know my portfolio does not have any game asset, but hey modeling is modeling, I was hoping that if I showed nice models, I could find something in the game industry

slosh

I agree that modeling is modeling but gaming means you gotta texture too. Environment guys may have gigs where it is separated between modeling and texturing and even then they prob have to show strong texturing skills to get jobs. Character guys most definitely need to be able to texture and since your stuff is stylized, I would do some nice hand painted textures to match the models. I would have to say a key in the gaming industry is that EVERYONE can model, it's the texturing, lighting, rendering, extra stuff that separate you from the pack.

rogelio

Dude awesome stuff very inspiring you have it down when it comes to forms. If you are considering games just do like 2-3 of these models baked down and textured you will get a gig fast.

Looking at your resume I say your mostly set, but yeah a textured version of 2-3 of these will just seal the deal for most companies. Solid port.

Good luck on your ventures

Suba

This is one of the most stunning portfolios I've seen. Really inspiring.

OlivierC

Slosh, I realized after posting that saying "modeling is modeling" was kinda dumb

I'll try to texture a couple models soon, I have a few ideas of personal projects to work on during lunch break, I'll try to squeeze some colors in them.