Hey Polycount Forum,
I've only been a 3D artist for about a year or two and am looking for critiques on my portfolio. I strive to be a fantastic Environment Artist, but I've got a long way to go and I need you're help to tell me / show me what I'm doing wrong and right. It's gonna be a long journey and I cant wait to take it with you all. Thanks for doing this, really can't do it without you guys.
Cheers,
Alex
Replies
Alot of your work looks like student work and not up to par to what studios are looking for. This is typical of most graduates and students and most need to spend additional time to learn the latest techniques as well as getting better doing game art in general. This is the boat that you're currently in right now.
You need to learn Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials, normal maps, and a basic understanding of using a current game engine such as Unreal.
If you want to become an environment artist, then look toward tailoring your portfolio so that it only shows environments. Ideally real-time environments (in a game engine) and not renders.
Look at the latest triple A games and set your quality bar to that level. When you do a new portfolio piece, aim to reach this level. You might not hit it, but at least it'll be a goal to strive for. As they say, aim for the stars because even if you miss you'll land on the moon.
Thanks for looking at my stuff. I just graduated from a 3D generalist program very recently so that might explain why it looks like student work. I've been using the quixel DDO for texturing (that has PBR materials i believe) and am trying to learn zbrush and NDO for normal maps. I'm also trying to learn substance painter and Unreal engine, though I just started to learn how to use those very recently. Do you know of any tutorials or sites I could use to learn more about these programs and/or any modern techniques used in the industry? What about any mentoring? Thanks for the advice, it's really helpful and I look forward to more in the future.
Cheers,
Alex
You can even try to search for "next gen asset creation", here's some decent looking results that I got
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIt-nemQopE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFHVafZKZA4
Current gen game art is the combination of several techniques including:
High poly modeling. Hard surface modeling done in 3ds max or Maya. Organic done in Zbrush or other sculpting program
Baking out the high poly onto a low poly to produce maps such as normal maps and ambient occlusion
Texturing with PBR using Substance Designer or Painter, or Photoshop
Presentation of asset in Unreal of other game engine
Try searching the above key terms in youtube or google to bring up some tutorials.. hope this helps