Failed an artist interview, was told to get feedback here. Please advise
polycounter lvl 4
Hi guys and gals,
So a month or so ago I had an interview for a 3d artist internship, and sadly didn't get it. Bygones be bygones, and I looked at it as an opportunity to improve and not beat myself up. I got a call today which was some feedback from the interviewers, and although they said I interviewed well, my technical skills were in need of improvement, especially texture work. I feel that was fair and to be honest they were right, I've had trouble since day 1 with normal maps/ pbr textures and do need to improve.
They suggested I get some critique from you fine artists in order to improve my skills which is a great idea, so without further ado, my portfolio is here:
Ryan-shearer.squarespace.com
As much as it pains me to say this, go nuts. Rip it apart, tell me everything you like, tell me more of everything you hate. I would definitely like some useful links, help, advice, anything to get me up to industry level skills.
In case you're wondering, I'm a 3rd year computer arts student at Abertay university in dundee, UK. Been doing this for 3 years.
Hopefully you guys can help me, and I'll update you with progress if you're interested. Hopefully I might be able to go back next year with massively improved skills and land a job there
Cheers all. I appreciate the help (in advance)
Ryan
So a month or so ago I had an interview for a 3d artist internship, and sadly didn't get it. Bygones be bygones, and I looked at it as an opportunity to improve and not beat myself up. I got a call today which was some feedback from the interviewers, and although they said I interviewed well, my technical skills were in need of improvement, especially texture work. I feel that was fair and to be honest they were right, I've had trouble since day 1 with normal maps/ pbr textures and do need to improve.
They suggested I get some critique from you fine artists in order to improve my skills which is a great idea, so without further ado, my portfolio is here:
Ryan-shearer.squarespace.com
As much as it pains me to say this, go nuts. Rip it apart, tell me everything you like, tell me more of everything you hate. I would definitely like some useful links, help, advice, anything to get me up to industry level skills.
In case you're wondering, I'm a 3rd year computer arts student at Abertay university in dundee, UK. Been doing this for 3 years.
Hopefully you guys can help me, and I'll update you with progress if you're interested. Hopefully I might be able to go back next year with massively improved skills and land a job there
Cheers all. I appreciate the help (in advance)
Ryan
Replies
"Train
Train and Freight game assets. Designed for an AAA game. I wanted to focus on intricate design and detailing with geometry rather than materials. Created in Maya/ Photoshop/ Mental Ray. Part of a second year University project."
This reads as. I'm not motivated enough to push my material work so this is my excuse. It's also not even rendered in a game engine, doesn't have normal maps, etc.
Game assets section: No smoothed normals on the fire hydrant!? Low poly church? That's about a full days work at a studio (less than 8 hours)
Scrapyard: A little better since it's in engine. Faults, poor lighting that doesn't show off assets. Once again, no normal maps? Ground texture tile is too obvious.
Hannibal Library: Once again, maybe a day or two blockout. Doesn't really show anything else.
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Advice: You need to pick a small asset and really nail the AAA standards if that is your goal. You could do like a small simple pistol or something. The glock comes to mind since so many people have done it. You should be able to look at others low poly topology and there will be many examples of the quality level you need to shoot for.
Forget about doing ANYTHING large scale, and learn the basics.
High poly modeling > low poly modeling > baking normal, AO, curvature, and color ID maps > texturing using PBR in Photoshop without DDO (NDO is fine) > Placing and lighting that assets in a game ready engine (Toolbag 2 would work).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Glock_17C_cropped.jpg
Thanks for the honesty it's what I need. Keep it coming woo
While you're texturing, separate out ALL the elements. Dirt should be in its own folder. Metal of a particular type should be in it's own group. Follow the way dDo outputs their maps.
Thinking about your textures in this separated way will allow you to specifically tackle one thing at a time. "What IS the specular of all the dirt on this asset?" instead of "what does the specular map look like for this bag?" you move from a big thing to a much smaller, more consistent thing.
It looks like you have the basics of UVing down. I can't tell that there's any high poly work being done. If you do have normal maps applied, it looks like you are pulling them straight from the texture. You should be baking them from a high poly mesh instead.
I would say the next step is for you to look into: A high poly to low poly workflow.
1. Make a high poly mesh.
2. Make a low poly mesh that conforms to the high poly mesh.
3. UV the low poly mesh.
4. Bake a normal map from the high poly mesh and apply it to the low poly mesh.
If it's done correctly you should be able to tell little visual difference between the high poly mesh and the low poly mesh (with the normal map applied).
Hang in there buddy! We've all been there!
When I say pbr by the way, I don't mean hyper realistic photo real, I mean kinda 'the order:1886' 'witcher 3' type art, where is uses all the pbr maps but is made for games. That gap is closing faster than ever though!
Tobbo, you have a good eye. That is what I've been doing. I hate to admit but I've been avoiding Zbrush and hi poly stuff for a long time due to the learning curve, but I've been doing some high to low poly stuff this week, mainly just rocks and basic stuff following digital tutors videos and trying to find out how to make real looking assets. From what Ive been doing lately my normal maps do look better, but there is still a long way to go. Thanks for the kind words and the advice, it is appreciated.
Sam, anyone's advice is welcome, so thanks for contributing. You're bang on with the island, looking back it was a bad idea but that was before I was introduced to engines. I've got the quixel suite but I'm a little apprehensive about DDO. Every art I see that uses ddo all looks similar and kind of unoriginal ( might be just me! ) but I'm worried if I get too involved in using DDO textures I'll start to lose that originality. Apprexiate the feedback though man! I'm off on holiday for a week tomorrow so I will message you when I'm back
That's fantastic! If it makes you feel any better, that whole process I just described was probably one of the biggest technical hurdles for me personally to overcome and I too dreaded learning the workflow. Things are so much easier now that I have studied and have some understanding of it though. I no longer close my eyes and hope and pray my bakes come out okay! And if there is an issue, most of the time I understand the underlying cause and it's a simple tweak and re-bake.
instead just wanted to give you a thumbs up and tell you you can do it. Technical stuff is easy to learn dont let it be a barrier as its just a process a step by step process get it out of the way then you can concentrate on your artistic eye.
Good luck man have a productive summer and enjoy it. i wish i had a summer to dedicate to portfolio work and projects id love to do
Thanks for telling me that haha, it feels like a universal problem! Yeah, a lot of tutorials do the 1k low poly bake/ slap in engine, see any big issues and then adjust back in the sculpting program and fix little tweaks in ndo. It's nice to hear other people had the same issues and overcome them. Your art station work is beautiful, the texture breakdowns are a great way for me to learn. It gives me hope I can be that good one day! Just need to keep grinding and working.
And thank you very much Proximity. I bet I will. It's definitely motivated me and I appreciate the support. I'll try and post regularly ish with work updates so you can see how it goes. I've got a year left of uni so that job at Christmas might have to be delayed!
hello, my 2 cents on top of the help given:
island
- does not look like the concept, does not have the mood. you see the rocks in the concept? there are colour shifts in hue and saturation. yours is just a flat out texture overlay with single colour and flat lighting.
- work on the textures, and learn how to light the scene to convey the mood.
train
- textures are very dull. most importantly, i don't see specular or normals on them. if you are doing hand painted diffuse, you have to paint in the light yourself. if you are doing PBR, get the metal to look like metal, rust to look like rust with regards not only to colour but the albedo. and again, just a flat colour with some random dirt map will not work.
- it looks like you didnt bake in any AO which makes all your "intricate design" a waste.
- a poor choice of design to showcase intricate modeling as well, as i find these shapes very basic, and you are showing them off from a distance which makes it worse, i cant see much detail. try to get a design with a interesting silhouette like a gun, etc!
hydrant
- the base doesnt look smoothed, is that intentional?
- wear and tear is not convincing. do some studies of old hydrants.
- it looks like its been thru the desert and back. get some saturation in there!
- say no to WIPS.
scrapyard
- assets are not grounded, looks floating around.
- too many polys for a game environment.
- again, texture looks flat.
game jam
- i think you can mention it in your resume, but the visuals do not enhance your portfolio at all.
hannibal
- say no to WIPS x2
- on the bright side, i see some potential in this due to the choice of design (although a little common) and practice of building modular assets.
- may i suggest that you make it become a derelict, old building instead of just following the photo. it would serve as good practice.
most importantly, i think you can start with small assets first. i hope you find this constructive and don't give up, i was like you before :poly124:
Thank you for the kind words!