Should I be raytracing or using displacement maps for portfolio pieces (gaming industry)

IEatModels

I guess there are two ways I see of going about my portfolio pieces. I high/low poly using displacement/normal maps/ets on the low poly and show the poly count on the images of finished assets or I just keep it high poly and render out finished pieces off that using raytracing methodes since people are just looking at images anyways?

Of course I can do either and include a few examples of highly detailed low poly models (just to show I can do it) but maybe for the bulk of the portfolio, I just focus on good looking images? 

thanks in advance! 

Panupat

For the finish product, you should show them in game engine. Download Unreal Engine 4 and do whatever it takes to look good in it.

For high poly sculpt, show them as is. Render them out with grey shader.

Obscura

Doesn't really matter how you render your hp, it just has to look good. Lp should be always rendered in a game engine. Depending on the asset, you can add displacement, but actually its still not used widely...

IEatModels

thanks a lot PANUPAT AND OBSURA!

any reason to use unreal over unity? or is it basically the same and just personal preference
also how do I show that its in engine? Just maybe a little txt in the image or video? you guys got any links to good starting portfolios that are doing this?

THANKS AGAIN! you guys are awesome

Farfarer

It'll generally be obvious to the trained eye that it's in engine.

These days there's no real excuse not to put it in an engine or real time viewer, with free access to the latest tech (UE4, Unity) or the ability time view real time assets at high real-time quality in Substance or Marmoset, etc.

Putting things in engine is also good for beginners as it gets them used to the full workflow, and shows that they can work to the limitations of an engine rather than a full offline renderer.