Help me soup up my portfolio!

marcobar

Hi all,

I'm trying to make my way into the games/entertainment industry as a 3D artist, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting things going. I showed my portfolio to a friend of mine already in the industry, and we both agreed that the work I have looks dated - especially the texture work.

SO - I was hoping some of the fine folks here on Polycount could offer some suggestions about a couple things:

• What do you think is wrong with the portfolio now?
• What needs to be included to make it a stand-out portfolio?

To be clear, I'm looking for brutal honesty! Don't worry about offending with your comments or critiques.

My portfolio can be accessed at http://marcobar.com and I'll put a few thumbnails here for those who want just a quick look:

Tobbo

I would go through the wiki section first.

http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryPortfolio

Stick with a more plain website. The website itself (scripting including) should be basic. It took a little while for the image to pop up after clicking on it. Slow loading pages should be avoided.

Also with all of your pieces you should be showing wireframes and texture flats.

What's your workflow look like? Are you making a high poly and then baking it down to a low poly? Almost all of your edges on your objects are reading as the same bevel/width (except for the top of the toolbox). Try and really pay attention to the different widths and smoothness of bevels on objects.

All of the scenes are coming off as very basic or unfinished as well.

Josh Mount

Real time graphics. Make some pieces using those techniques required in making today's game assets.

Ssjtroll

I agree with Tobbo, your images took to long to load. Scrolling though a page is so much faster.

Also some texture maps, wire frames and progress shots. Those are always good to see.

marcobar

@Tobbo my workflow depends on which asset is being created. If I know I want to bake detail into it, I start in 3ds max with a low-poly mesh, and then move that into ZBrush or just beef it up in max before baking the high on to the low. A lot of the work I'm showing atm is just 3ds max + Photoshop, though, which I think is one of the problems I'm having. I need to make more high-detail stuff.

Okay, so:

POINT: some work needs to be done on optimizing the portfolio itself with a work-first approach. Less animations/script gunk. Check.

POINT: My industry friend also brought up the point about including wires/maps, so this is definitely an established weak point.

POINT: The actual content on there right now is too basic/isolated, and need to be presented withing a more complete-looking scene.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far - this is very helpful!

P.S. - I'm trying to plan out the actual subject matter or what I need to include as well (i.e., a piece demonstrating modular environment pieces, an organic sculpt, and so forth), so suggestions on that would be very much appreciated!