working at Rockstar
polycounter lvl 13
hey guys....
been looking to get hired at Rockstar for a while now as either an interior artist or environment artist but so far no dice. I'm currently working on a couple pieces but just wondering if I could get some input and or advice on what you guys think would really help me land the job there.
ps my current portfolio and work can be found here:
http://spid3y.artstation.com/
many thanks in advance....
been looking to get hired at Rockstar for a while now as either an interior artist or environment artist but so far no dice. I'm currently working on a couple pieces but just wondering if I could get some input and or advice on what you guys think would really help me land the job there.
ps my current portfolio and work can be found here:
http://spid3y.artstation.com/
many thanks in advance....
Replies
Two of your pieces (Palace interior, and Arches) use the same tiling texture over everything. If i can pick up on this then you can be sure that an environment lead or art director will. Responsible re-use of assets is great, but it also needs to be subtle, and when it's used for both the floor, and the walls, and the beams, there's a problem.
You have a section for material studies, but you have no examples of these materials being put into use (see issue above). This should really be the highlight of your portfolio. You need to double check the normals on some of them though, looks like the green channel needs inverting.
And finally, while i think ArtStation is great for linking and networking with other artists, and it's fairly decent for pimping your work. The link you provided is incredibly bland, and i don't think it shows off your work to its fullest potential. The bright white background makes me want to shut down the page immediately. This link would be better: http://www.artstation.com/artist/spid3y and if possible, making your own webpage which presents the artwork in a better way would be great.
just my $0.02, good luck!
Definitely agree 100%. Your material studies are pretty well done; what i'd like to see is an explanation of how these have been made. I dont know if this judges your zbrush work, substance work, or combining quixel with photosourced textures...
I hate building websites with such a burning passion that if I ever do another serious online portfolio I'm switching it to art station. I do think it's a smart idea to get your own domain and point it to your art station gallery in case it goes belly up like CGHub.
That's absolutely a valid point, and i mentioned using the alternate artstation link for that reason
yea I feel that lol
spend so much more time than i wanted on a website and i still need to do a bunch, but especially in your case Eric (nice name btw) the devil is in the details. You gotta present yourself better, or your models. Im gonna be straight with you, no sugar coating, I hope you can do something with it - If you want to go to such a prestigeous company such as rockstar, and you are an artist, then you gotta show that you have artistic vision. Most of your model are really well done, especially the highs,
but you are mainly replicating things. When you are at that part where your vision is asked, you seem to lack (no personal logo, no usage of fonts, [isolated assets: uninspired lighting, no presentation, grey backgrounds (grey=mediocrity), not even trying to make something with text, nothing is unified but per example all the weapons could have a unified presentation, most of the lowpolies are so edgy and so you could question how much you care about flawless visuals, the textures have no real eye candy (except the crossbow a bit with text, which works well there), the latest 2 ingame environments could have better composition + no "own" website to top that impression off. What is really impressive is the sheer amound and quality of the modeling, so you seem to be more of a technical person. Im no super recruiter but thats what i can see your traits are))
Some other things , definitely cut the lows of the SVD and Model 1887 + RPG theyre just older and drag the rest down, keep the highs tho id say
the thumbnails are misleading, they dont suggest that there is so much hidden
The tiling textures look really nice
I really enjoy that thumbnail of the grenade launcher, but the weapon designs are very stereotypical and do not follow function, id present a bunch of those assets on one sheet , couple of things with the same style look always nice together, and take a little individual focus away
Make some nice colored backgrounds and maybe chose a classy sans serif font and write alteast your name and email. http://www.dafont.com/roboto.font
Use thin and bold on different words Eric Vanic and it will look instantly good. thin fonts look very tasteful
Use more polys on the lows, the low edges are fatal, make it flawless, dress to
impress, nobody cares how expensive the tuxedo was, until you have to make
it for them.
I can not really agree with the theme proposal of Gir, white is friendly and inviting but thats all personal taste i guess, and the blue one is not too great imo
For website builders i can recommend: Weebly for intermediate, Carbonmade for instant look good, Wix for high end, but you need your own domain and subscription if you do that, else it looks cheap, not too expensive tho.
Get some crits from the great env artists here on the latest 2 environments, theyre a good start but need a bit of help. If you want to get more from the artist side of things, I can only recommend looking at many other things, like behance or abduzeedo recaps and your brain will save all those things and recall on them withour you conciously knowing, and you get a even better sense for all these not 3d modeling things without even trying.
Lastly, are you sure you want to be at rockstar where you are one of a thousand ? You may have more fun at a smaller firm, but dont give up!
uff that was a lot, I hope that helps you ; ) , good luck man
+1. Didn't see any environments here and think "wow, this guy could be working at Rockstar!", the weapons are better pieces, but what Shrike said is on point.
Your two environments look really flat, lacking detail, lighting + said lack of detail makes it look like those old cg prerendered backgrounds. Worst bit is without textures? The palace interior is fairly gorgeous. The textures are bringing it down. Look at recent examples of the standard (Assassins Creed Unity would be great ref for the palace piece, theres an art dump here that goes further into some things, too) and do proper textures. Everything being different shades of marble just won't cut it. Additionally, obvious shading error on the stairs.
Your tiling textures/materials page is nice, even if a few of them could use a little work. But all in all, if you're applying to Environment artist roles, you'll need more actual environments. You only have 4, 2 of which are very small and not very strong (Arches, Work Desk) and the other two of which have noticable problems (textures ruin Palace, Render on the Loft Space is kinda weird. AO? Shadowing is also kind of weird, Normals for the wood texture are flipped).
I think it's perhaps also worth noting that you need links to your resume, your email and name on every piece and contact information as a page.
Also, maybe don't get too attached to the idea of one studio. Have you worked for anyone else yet?
thanks for the feedback there Bagel. appreciate it
I've only done freelance so far, and even tho Rockstar is my no1 choice, I would not be opposed to working somewhere else.
I've been through your thread because might be interest in Rockstar as well in the future, so can you give us an update on what happend next for you
(the best, I hope!)
thanks