portfolio critique needed!

kosolapchik

Hi! Recently updated my portfolio.
Before looking for a job, need some critique and advice.  Is it fine enough to find a good job nowadays? What can I do to improve it?
https://www.artstation.com/kosolapchik

Ashervisalis

Yo yo, I'm not sold on the Ba Render, your first project. I think the hair and eyebrows would need to be updated if you wanted to keep it. The rest of your portfolio is really dope. Just keep making more art and applying around

kosolapchik

Ashervisalis said:

Yo yo, I'm not sold on the Ba Render, your first project. I think the hair and eyebrows would need to be updated if you wanted to keep it. The rest of your portfolio is really dope. Just keep making more art and applying around

Thank you!
This one made 8 ( ) years ago, i thought to keep it like for the history (and a lot of ppl just keep saying me it's the best which makes me sad haha), but maybe i need to hide it for some time.

Ashervisalis

Yeah letting go of old projects is pretty difficult. Fortunately ArtStation lets you hide projects so you don't have to perma delete them or something. It may be difficult to land a job atm, it's difficult for everybody, but you have solid stuff in there. Good luck!

Fabi_G

Cool works, looking forward to see more Much success on the job search.
With future projects, perhaps straighten UVs where it makes sense, to minimize aliasing artifacts at seams.

kosolapchik

Fabi_G said:

Cool works, looking forward to see more Much success on the job search.
With future projects, perhaps straighten UVs where it makes sense, to minimize aliasing artifacts at seams.

thank you very much!
if you don't mind please make some specific examples on this point (because i thought i did straighten uvs  enough )

Fabi_G

Sure I was referring to the UVs of the latest character:

Some borders seem almost aligned with the pixel raster, but not quite, many others seems more relaxed (didn't mark all islands in question, but hopefully it's clear. I find tube-like/ cylindrical shapes and strips are very fitting for this). Perhaps it comes across as nitpicky  ,but I think even when work-samples don't have LODs, it doesn't take much time during unwrapping and allows to show a habit of making assets "future-proof".

Here is a cool thread by @Neox on the topic: https://polycount.com/discussion/235489/uv-straightening-and-its-perks-on-lod-generation, with other users chiming with methods for other modeling apps.

kosolapchik

Fabi_G said:
Some borders seem almost aligned with the pixel raster, but not quite, many others seems more relaxed (didn't mark all islands in question, but hopefully it's clear. I find tube-like/ cylindrical shapes and strips are very fitting for this). Perhaps it comes across as nitpicky  ,but I think even when work-samples don't have LODs, it doesn't take much time during unwrapping and allows to show a habit of making assets "future-proof".

Here is a cool thread by @Neox on the topic: https://polycount.com/discussion/235489/uv-straightening-and-its-perks-on-lod-generation, with other users chiming with methods for other modeling apps.

Ah, I see. Some of the cylinders could be straighter. Thanks
This is why I like polycount!
A bit confused about when the undistorted ratio is more preferable over the straighten lines, though!

Neox

kosolapchik said:

Fabi_G said:
Some borders seem almost aligned with the pixel raster, but not quite, many others seems more relaxed (didn't mark all islands in question, but hopefully it's clear. I find tube-like/ cylindrical shapes and strips are very fitting for this). Perhaps it comes across as nitpicky  ,but I think even when work-samples don't have LODs, it doesn't take much time during unwrapping and allows to show a habit of making assets "future-proof".

Here is a cool thread by @Neox on the topic: https://polycount.com/discussion/235489/uv-straightening-and-its-perks-on-lod-generation, with other users chiming with methods for other modeling apps.

Ah, I see. Some of the cylinders could be straighter. Thanks
This is why I like polycount!
A bit confused about when the undistorted ratio is more preferable over the straighten lines, though!

it depends on the final use really. the higher the texture resolution, the less this matters. if you dont have lods, go wild, make banafingers and curvy shapes. 

distortion is a topic, 3d painting and projection solves this to some extend. But as shown in my thread, squaring for the sake of square shapes and not looking into how much it distorts, is also not the way to go. It is always a balance between many factors.

With 3d painting not a lot of this matters anyways. that being said, painting a straight line in 2d will always be simpler than brushing it over a 3d curved surface.

say you wanna add stitching to that belt marked here

it can be a 2 click operation, or a lot more complex to solve, and no matter how good the tools become it will stay more complex than 2 clicks in 2d space. it will look less clean and pixelated depending on the final resolution and how close you actually can get. To me personally this is always time well spent, because it is time you save yourself or possibly others down the road in texturing, or lodding, or skinning at times using UVs to select the needed verts is also simpler than doing this in 3d.

Always keep in mind that the current step is likely not the last step, try to keep all steps of the production in mind at any step of the way.