Portfolio review - - feedback
polycounter lvl 9
Hey,
I think I need some kind of guidance and Feedback. I want to apply to another Company somewere outside of Germany and i have no idear how to Show my skills with my Portfolio..
About me: I am a 3D generalist with 5 years of experience in the games industry. i modeling stuff, write shader, animate, work with a lot of Tools and know how to handle them. I am really good in finding good sollution and Workflows becouse of my deep Knowledge about tools, engines, 3D modelling, textures and shaders.
I am thankful for all feedback, idears and help to improve my portfolio.
Ra6gaska
Portfolio
[Edit]
Last post is the newes post. scroll down!
I think I need some kind of guidance and Feedback. I want to apply to another Company somewere outside of Germany and i have no idear how to Show my skills with my Portfolio..
About me: I am a 3D generalist with 5 years of experience in the games industry. i modeling stuff, write shader, animate, work with a lot of Tools and know how to handle them. I am really good in finding good sollution and Workflows becouse of my deep Knowledge about tools, engines, 3D modelling, textures and shaders.
I am thankful for all feedback, idears and help to improve my portfolio.
Ra6gaska
Portfolio
[Edit]
Last post is the newes post. scroll down!
Replies
to be honest I find your portfolio kind of confusing when talking about the layout/structure and useability of the website.
You only show very little in terms of art (just some textures and a container).
Most of the time it's more useful to concentrate on one role than beeing a generalist.
For me, personally, it's actually really hard to say anything more than this because of the lack of content you're presenting.
"i modeling stuff, write shader, animate, work with a lot of Tools and know how to handle them."
Maybe show some animations you did? And show the stuff you modeled (I guess there's more than the container).
(you also have some typos in your texts)
whats about the typos? you mean the written stuff?
And how i should structure my website? Maybe it is confusing becouse I dont know yet or have a plan how to setup the website that no one gets confused and also shows my main strenght.
The first thing I clicked on took me back to the main page... Your biggest image the thing I first saw was just a link to bring me back to the main page.
Next nothing is centered, this might be a personal preference for me but if you only have two links to work on your portfolio center them as your site will look less empty.
Are those project professional? Then call them Professional not .projects. So when I went to that link I was told what you worked on... Don't ever Tell us what you did on a project Show us. The only time you should tell us something about the model/animation/texture ect ect is if you did not do all of the work your self, as in I did the animations but the model was done by so in so. With that said get rid of the video of the game and show us what you did. If I worked on a game as a character artist and only show the video of the game that does not let the potential employers what I can do, they can assume from either I did the main character or the background characters.
Also you title your self as a 3d artist... but I honestly can only see one model you I am assuming made the packing crates, which are the same model with a simple color swap. Where are the rest of your models?
I am sorry if this came off as negative or mean, but I hope the info will help a bit.
1. The first thing I see is a full-wide banner of some work - some decent but uninspiring shipping containers - clicking them reloads the page. What's the point in this image? to take you to the main page? How about having 'Robin Schmidt Portfolio' title text take you there instead and just get rid of this needless header.
2. You do not want people clicking through pages, you've got about 20 seconds of an employer's time at maximum, and they'll make their decision on how good you are on the first bit of work they see, and never visit the other pages. Get your best work all on one page and have anything else accessible from there, and everything accessible from everywhere else. Dont have anyone go more than a page away from root.
3. Im on the environment page at the moment - first thing I notice is the stylised grass which I've seen a tutorial for. Don't include tutorial stuff, it turns us off - it shows us you've spent, maybe a day or two following a video and that's what you have to show? I'd have expected you to then spend at least another day doing your own piece inspired by what you learned and include that instead, you know? If you really learned much from the tutorial you should be able to.
Beyond that, I get that the others are material showcases but the vase-like object you're using to display them really messes with the sense of scale and the presentation in general. If you must keep it, remove the top piece and just have the gold base. Really though if you're an environment artist, I'd expect to see an environment.
4. Going back and then to the projects page I see no work at all. Skimming through the text I get the sense that you basically imported and converted assets - I would really summarise your involvement in both projects down to one paragraph with the two game logos presented cleanly and small below the text. Then, to replace the lack of demonstrable assets do some writing about the things you've done. ideally just get some images, show the process maybe. Go get permission from your previous employers if you can.
5. Remember portfolios demonstrate the best that you can do right now, and if that's a tutorial, some substance and some text then maybe you would be better off changing your site to a blog for now, where you write about your progress, because presenting this atm i think is doing you more damage than good.
I've been super brutal, but its for the best reasons
And thanks that you mentioned that tutorial .. I made that tutorial ;-) maybe that was not clear enough.
Thanks for that really good Feedback and I like that hard direct Feedback it helps much more.
cYa in a few month and thanks for that feedback as soon I have some things to show I will publish it on this page.
something new :-)
Feedback is always welcome.
The gold display thing I would just get rid of too for the other substances, it adds nothing and takes away from the materials themselves. For the professional work I would post screenshots of the assets you made rather than a long gameplay video as no one is going to have time to watch it and it does not make clear what stuff you actually made.
You might be better starting the site from scratch and maybe use a better solution than wordpress. Sorry if I sounded a little harsh at times, but I think you actually have some really good content just need to show it better!
it's to wide, you should specialize yourself into one field ..
I Decidet to Show a gameplay Video you dont have to watch entirely but i had my hands on everything you can see in the video and I dont find the time to collect and prepare the stuff i did. The Problem is also that I am a damn good allrounder and I am really good in finding good and efficent sollutions for what ever problem come up in the development process on the artside... it is hard to communicate something like this skill with images.
I decidet to create one Scene in my spare time. the Scene should cover all my skillsets. So it is a lot to do and i think it will take some month. I will post updates on this thread when I want to Show something to improve.
Ok the paper thin bricks. got it :-) and thank you for the Feedback.
i will rerender the substances, create a breakdown page and seperate them in to logic groups.
Plus what are you marketing yourself as? I see you have textures and then you show a 20 minute video of gameplay that doesnt say what you actually worked on and after skimming through it I grew annoyed because I have no idea what you did, and thats how most employers will feel. A portfolio tells a story of you and your skill set and the way that you grow and the type of things you choose to spend your time on.
I took all the feedback evaluate it. I think it is better to shut the portfolio down and close this topic untill i have a idea and collected my stuff.
Thanks for your feedback.
I was a d*** so i decided to edit that Post.
I want to tell I am still thankful for every feedback I got from you guys/girls. I was very frustrated about some feedback from companies they did not even looked Into the things I did and it totally was my fault, you have told me that but I not understood it right.
I will come up with a new page and less Stuff presented in a hopefully good way that reflects my current skillset, not the things I am proud of and transports it that people got hooked in the first 10 seconds.
What I learned in the past years, Is that no one know your emotional connections to a piece of work and really cant judge the Iterations it took to craft a piece, workflow or experience you have. what advantages you could add to a team when you are not showing the skill they are looking for no matter if you are capable of doing so.
For me as a Technical Artist from a Mobile-Indi developer It is close to impossible to show stuff a AAA Dev wants to see, the Mindset is totally different and that is important to know.
If anyone stubles over that thread, I will leave it here and hopefully someone learn from it.
Thank you for every feedback,
Ra6gaska