Portfolio Feedback

3DShaq

Hi all!

I am a BA(Hons) Animation student in my last year, learning and developing my skills in various fields throughout the course and when it came to my last year I came to the decision that I wanted to become a 3D Artist hoping to work in the VFX or Games Industry.

I recently created my first Showreel, showcasing the work I have created from around mid-2016 up till now. I've been posting some of my work on Polycount which I have used to get feedback and critique on projects to develop my skills and knowledge in getting the best results.

I recently put up my personal website which I intend to update with new work from personal to industry in the future.

PERSONAL WEBSITE

SHOWREEL

My plans for future projects are to focus on creating more complex geometry and possibly integrating those models into a live action environment showcasing my VFX skills

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my current portfolio and I am open to any suggestions and tips that would help my Showreel stand out more.

Thanks!

Bomb_Bear

Good start but I can see some problems with the modeling.

You have alot of broken smoothing groups and your models are inbetween high and low.


You should take a look at optimizing your meshes if you plan to use them in a games engine. You have alot of support loops that from what I can see do nothing to your model so those can be removed.

The texturing is off to a good start but the normals feel very noisy which in my opinion destory the look of your work.

For your 3D work maybe try having still frames of some nice angles to show off your work and have the video at the end (Artstation).

Keep it up and you´ll get where you wanna go!!

Dan Powell

Hey 3DShaq,

I took a look at your ArtStation portflio, and there's some great work on show, however; I'm not sure you're targeting your goals particularly well with the work you're showing!

For example, you mention in your post that you'd be interested in breaking into the Games industry, but nothing here is game-ready (by that I mean, optimised for use in a game engine.) To address this point you are definitely going to have to do some artwork that's real-time rendered in a game engine, or show off more models that are optimised for games. Additionally, when you create stuff for games you have to demonstrate that you have made considerations for the gameplay (i.e. you've built the environment/artwork in such a way that it would be great for gameplay.)

Additionally, on your ArtStation account you have a few duplicate pieces of work. Try to keep work under the same tile else it gets very repetitive.

Your Interceptor/Fighter jet looked like it could be game-ready, but I struggled to tell because there was no wireframe shot from what I could see. :P 

Keep up the awesome work. Hope this helps

3DShaq

Hey thanks for the feedback,


@Bomb_Bear This project took a while to render and this particular area put me off as well, I guess I was more focused on the lighting. I soon realised that I hadn't been utilising the hard/soft edge tool in Maya and I haven't had the time to rerender.

@Dpowell94 I realised this as well and made sure I didn't repeat that on my Personal Website, I'm going make that adjustment now on my ArtStation page. Also in the showreel, there was a wireframe for the Starfighter, maybe you missed it, However this one was the high-poly (with a bunch of unnecessary edge loops, again I didn't utilise the soft/hard edge tool at that time), I couldn't seem to find the project file which had the low poly version, so I was forced to use this.

I understand what you mean and I agree because I want to focus my portfolio on VFX / Film more over Games at the moment and I don't think my reels completely shows that at the moment. This reel is more showcasing the work I did and the learning process (the reel starts in order from of the work I did), so I don't intend to use this current reel when I apply for a job.

From all the feedback I have received from my peers as well, I think my aim now for upcoming work is to add some sort of real world integration (e.g. integrating a 3D model in a live action environment) so it fits more with VFX, do you agree?

Thanks!

RustySpannerz

Yes, do that if you're focusing on VFX. That kind of stuff will be very useful, probably compositing, animation, lighting, rendering and particles are all things that you need to learn for that. But I have no idea what the different areas and job positions involved in film are. Games are very different from film, and while skills like modelling carry through to both. Games require knowledge of optimizations, considerations for gameplay, normal map baking and other tools to make objects that look great and perform well. And for a portfolio it helps to present it in a game engine. For film everything just needs to look really cool.