Technical Artist: What are good work samples to send to a recruiter?
null
A recruiter for a company I am extremely excited about asked for more work samples at the end of a phone interview. I was ready for an art test, but am not sure what good work samples for a technical artist should include. On google and forum searches, most of what I get for 'work samples' is just 'portfolio.' I asked for a few days to put something together, but am not sure what that should be.
As a technical artist for environments I already have a GitHub and an Artstation designed to show off my best and most polished work (tool code, real-time renders, materials etc). While my other stuff isn't bad, it's not on my portfolio. A lot of it suffers from what I can only describe as the "oh man this is so cool" problem. I love trying new stuff, but when I do it's not to get a portfolio-polished result. It's to get down the basics (say 60% of the way there) to test if it runs well and is something worth using in the future. When the time comes for a portfolio/work piece, I can then grab a WIP that I know is viable and go that last 40%.
So a few questions, along with my tentative guesses of what I should be including:
-UE4/Unity Scene Files: The images are on my portfolio, so the scene files for my best work could fall neatly under 'work samples', right? I'm already pretty organized, so they're mostly ready to go. Downsides: UE4 files are huge. How would I even go about sending that in an email?
-WIP Shaders/Code: I have some pretty cool proof-of-concept shaders, even if they aren't pretty. But often code from other people (who freely shared it with the community) is mixed in with my own. Because I'm just playing around and didn't have any intention of using it in a professional setting, I didn't clearly delineate what code is mine and what is not. I can mostly say what is mine, but would giving credit properly suffice or should work samples be all original work? I want to be ethical.
-Lighting Studies: WIP scenes (often with no intention of being portfolio-ready), with incredibly basic or unfinished materials, but with pretty nice lighting. But materials are a huge part of making lighting look good. So would the result be underwhelming?
-Tools: A lot of the workflow tools I develop are incredibly simple. Some of the more interesting ones could be included, but I don't want to look like a noob who thinks 8 lines of code is a masterwork. Unfortunately, a lot of the problems I run into can be solved in 8 lines or less. Great in practice, less impressive to a recruiter, I think.
-How much should I send, when I already have a portfolio of work? 4 things? 5? 8? Just the most interesting things?
-How should I send it? I was thinking neatly organized and labeled folders with a txt file in each one explaining my process, what I was doing, and why.
I am really excited about this opportunity and don't want to mess it up by putting my worst foot forward. Any advice you could give me would be very appreciated!
As a technical artist for environments I already have a GitHub and an Artstation designed to show off my best and most polished work (tool code, real-time renders, materials etc). While my other stuff isn't bad, it's not on my portfolio. A lot of it suffers from what I can only describe as the "oh man this is so cool" problem. I love trying new stuff, but when I do it's not to get a portfolio-polished result. It's to get down the basics (say 60% of the way there) to test if it runs well and is something worth using in the future. When the time comes for a portfolio/work piece, I can then grab a WIP that I know is viable and go that last 40%.
So a few questions, along with my tentative guesses of what I should be including:
-UE4/Unity Scene Files: The images are on my portfolio, so the scene files for my best work could fall neatly under 'work samples', right? I'm already pretty organized, so they're mostly ready to go. Downsides: UE4 files are huge. How would I even go about sending that in an email?
-WIP Shaders/Code: I have some pretty cool proof-of-concept shaders, even if they aren't pretty. But often code from other people (who freely shared it with the community) is mixed in with my own. Because I'm just playing around and didn't have any intention of using it in a professional setting, I didn't clearly delineate what code is mine and what is not. I can mostly say what is mine, but would giving credit properly suffice or should work samples be all original work? I want to be ethical.
-Lighting Studies: WIP scenes (often with no intention of being portfolio-ready), with incredibly basic or unfinished materials, but with pretty nice lighting. But materials are a huge part of making lighting look good. So would the result be underwhelming?
-Tools: A lot of the workflow tools I develop are incredibly simple. Some of the more interesting ones could be included, but I don't want to look like a noob who thinks 8 lines of code is a masterwork. Unfortunately, a lot of the problems I run into can be solved in 8 lines or less. Great in practice, less impressive to a recruiter, I think.
-How much should I send, when I already have a portfolio of work? 4 things? 5? 8? Just the most interesting things?
-How should I send it? I was thinking neatly organized and labeled folders with a txt file in each one explaining my process, what I was doing, and why.
I am really excited about this opportunity and don't want to mess it up by putting my worst foot forward. Any advice you could give me would be very appreciated!
Replies
An industry insight that will provide a raft of direction how to proceed:
http://ericchadwick.com/img/techart_guidelines.html
Also just wondering if you'd asked the recruiter too provide additional info on what specifically is required in terms of portfolio inclusion and/or configuration, etc?
Some further general thoughts - I'll certainly recommend continue searching for vacancies/offers/job postings at studio's you're aiming to find employment with, usually their key selection criteria lists a skillset the potential candidate should have attained plus alongside reviewing similar folio/reel examples on ArtStation and go from there.
Good luck.
Well unless I'd missed it, your OP doesn't mention actual in-game deployment of your work so do you have any examples where your own original scripts/shaders/tools...etc were implemented in a fully fleshed out game?
In my opinion is what (..I'm not a tech artist BTW) "additional work samples" means.