Portfolio Review for 3D Environment and Props Artist in games.

thiva32

Hello everyone,  

I'm a Bachelor in Games Design and Animation student, i'm about to graduate my school by beginning of 2019. I will be going for my internship in a month time. I have been learning 3d art for 1+ year. I have been self taught in all kind of workflows involving modelling , uv-unwrapping , texturing and some game engine knowledge as well. I just completed a portfolio piece which is a Old Vintage Garage. It took me 2 weeks to create this environment. I need some feedback's and critique so that i can improve based on that. 

Thanks in advance. 
Here is a link to my portfolio https://tzar.artstation.com/ 

cjwidd

Your garage environment is a reasonable first effort for a self-taught artist. There are a variety of different considerations to make when presenting your work, but when showcasing an environment, lighting and composition are very important. 

Most artists will acknowledge that reference gathering is a crucial first step to modeling. Comparing your work to reference images of other garages might help to manage its proportions better.

Lighting an interior space is often more challenging than lighting and outdoor space; using emissive surfaces can sometimes complicate that process. The intensity of emissive light can sometimes be difficult to manage for nearby surfaces.

Practical architectural considerations (e.g. support columns) help communicate realism. I would consider how the second-floor layout is supported by the first floor without any support columns.

Most of the props in the scene are cloned and re-scaled. Without sufficient texture variation, the repeating elements becomes obvious and create a homogeneous appearance.

Additionally, arranging props in meaningful way can help communicate the narrative of the environment. For example, there is a couch upstairs in front of a table, but the table is empty, so why is the couch there?

The environment does contain objects that might be present in a garage, but the set dressing does not communicate a coherent narrative about the person (or people) who occupy it. For example, if the host is working with tires, why is the floor tile? Car garages almost unanimously have smooth concrete floors, because grease, dirt, etc. is much easier to clean off a uniform surface; there are also mats, pumps, car parts, cleaning equipment, etc. There are also several barrels in the scene, but why are they there? Between the gas canisters and two barrel variants, the person occupying this scene is in touch with *a lot* of industrial chemicals, but what about the scene communicates what they are doing with it?

Posters go a long way to communicating narrative, but the posters that are present downstairs are also upstairs. It might be worth considering decal textures to decorate the environment in a more bespoke way.

In my opinion, the staircase might be the best part of the scene: it provides functional value, it's textured in a believable way, the proportions are believable, and it creates interesting shadows for a small part of the environment. The walls and the ceiling, however, produced noticeable tiling, and are homogeneous in size, color, contrast, etc. Which brings me to my last point: color.

Managing color variation is important for creating visual interest. If you look at the attached image, where does your eye go? Where does the eye rest? You will see that the color palette in the environment is very homogeneous in tone, temperature, tint, etc. Consider alternate color theories for defining the look of your environment to create visual interest and attitude for the space.

aclund3

Hey man, great first stab at an environment!

All of what @cjwidd said, and I'd add to the point about reference in that its not just about reference for props and the overall space. Its also reference for mood, lighting, story, and every single material that you want to create.  Some of the materials in the scene work alright, but a lot of them aren't yet believable, especially close-up. You can push more there by looking at close-ups of real life materials and translating those minute details into your environment.  The concrete on the ceiling and wood need a lot of work still.  Many of your smaller props are working just fine, but definitely get into some more reference (use Pureref to organize it all).

There are also some basic UV unwrapping errors with wood grain misalignments, and smoothing group over uv island errors.  This tutorial may help you there.

Otherwise, think about how to work out some more dramatic lighting to assist in the story you'd like to tell in the environment. Maybe there's just a single strong light above the workbench and softer lights elsewhere. Maybe the windows bring in a flood of light across the underside of the concrete, skimming it with light?  Maybe there's a large light coming from behind the camera, like an open garage door, and the upper floor is fairly occluded?  Maybe there are tinted headlights from a car or motorcycle just pulling in from behind the camera.  Many options here.  The reality is that you can have a bunch of great assets and with poor lighting, everything looks crappy. If you have great lighting, you can make some pretty plain assets really look nice.  Composition and lighting rule over other priorities in the end.

I might add steel columns between the horizontal lined wall texture and then steel beams or trusses on top of those to assist in the structural believably of the scene.

Anyways, you can keep working this scene up to something quite nice I think, but you need to put quite a bit more time into it in my opinion.  Hope some of this feedback helps.  Keep going!