website Critique

Lee3dee

Hey guys, I was wondering if I could get a website crit. Going to be sending out resumes in a few weeks and making new business cards, etc. Wondering what people thought and where I can improve. I used alot of Jon Jones's suggestions in his article.

http://art.lee3dee.com/

thanks
Lee

cholden

There is a site bug that there seems to be a scroll bar inside of the main scroll bar. This blocks the user from seeing the whole of any of your pages with scroll unless they page down, use a mouse wheel, etc to view it. Also, I didn't immediately or with searching find a clickable (hyperlink) email address (though it is clearly visible). It helps to have this.

Here's a quick run-down of what I see:
Bigger final tank pics. You have a lot of work in the high detail/normal/etc that just isn't noticeable in your smaller sized images. Generate Scene could be your best piece. The dragon is a big turnoff. I don't care for it at all, and it stands out as off theme with the rest of your work. House looks good, though I find your brick wall texture to be much too low res vs your door and other pieces. PSP level seems ok though a bit bland. This was for a CGtalk comp wasn't it? Seems like you could fill this out more, though I think it's fine. UT level looks good, I've seen this before on CGtalk also. That, the tank and generator scene appear to be your most dedicated pieces. Environment Art section is good, professional work. 'nuff said. The contract work section seems good, but difficult to understand exactly what it is you've done there.

Overall, your work is good, and you've proved to work at a professional level. I don't see you having any trouble continuing to work in a professional environment as long as you keep up the hard work.

Rick Stirling

Ditch the blog link - seriously, right now. Then get rid of the tutorial link. At the moment the site is unfocused, if you want a portfolio site then build a portfolio site

Site layout is good

The house has some wonkly untidy triangulation going on, thats going to lend itself badly to ingame lighting. For environment art like that you REALLY want to use more 90 degree cuts (the exact opposite of what I'm always saying about character art)

Lee3dee

cholden & Rick_Stirling

Thanks for your suggestions. I made a few adjustments this morning.

Removed the BLOG page, since someone didn't like it. hehe.

I kept the tutorials page because there are very few detailed tutorial for using the Torque engine, especially with pictures.

Game Art section has been scaled back. Dragon is gone, but he will be making an appearence in my UT2004 level soon. hehe. I also made the tank page show alot bigger pictures and some render with and without normal mapping. This section looks a little bare.

The Environment art page got redone, instead of clicking all those screenshots, I now have 1 montage image, that you can click to goto all the screenshots. Saves the visitor from constantly clicking.

Contract work also got revamped, with descriptions for each of the pieces of work.

Tested the site in IE and Firefox and everything seems to be ok. Let me know what you think.

Cubik

Hiding it isn't the same thing as I'm sure you are aware of...
I think that the tank is easiest the best of your works and I'm a bit suprised that you haven't made a working version of it with a standard green texture.
The house is downright ugly, with a very lowres brick tile and a obviously tiling roof.
The generator scene would be fun to see ingame in whatever engine it's intended for to get some lightning.
Why is the movielink a .mov that that is grouped with a .mpg in some way? I want to able to download it where I want. The movie didn't really show off the levels, it seemed to be more of a general gameplay video. Maybe you should compose another one where you focus on the levels. Somewhat like the last part where the camera flied over the water. The whole shoot-call dog-get duck segment was too long and not focused on your work.
I think that you have too many pictures in the Contract section which prevents you from showing them in a decent size.
The page has a good, clear layout, everything is easy to find. Put your mailadress on name on your Game Art page and make the mailadress clickable.

The link to the tree tutorial is broke.

Lee3dee

The house is downright ugly, with a very lowres brick tile and a obviously tiling roof.
Sorry, it was for an art test, i did not make the specifications.

The generator scene would be fun to see ingame in whatever engine it's intended for to get some lightning.
Also another artest. Maybe I should put art test in on each of the pages.

thanks for crtique

Sinistar

I noticed on your resume page it says "Ultimate Duck Dunting", I guess that's a typo.

Lee3dee

it does? DOH! Thx for the noticing that

PolyMonkey

Hey Lee. My only feedback would be I would like to see your three sections, game art, enviroment, and contract work, all formatted the same way just to give your site a little more polish.

gauss

Environment has a typo on this page

http://art.lee3dee.com/art/house.htm

otherwise follow the advice already mentioned good luck. what polymonkey said especially, the more you can unify the better.

also, READ THIS!

http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=73945&an=0&page=0#73945

Lee3dee

Jeff: thanks for the suggestion , I'll work on the changes next week.

Gauss: Type fixed, thanks When you've gone over your website so many times the words all blurr. hehe. I did read that article, by Jon Jones it was very helpful.


Update from yesterday,

Rachel's Diner for UT2004 has finally reached Release Candidate 1. YAY. Its avaiable for download on that page. A few bot path issues and some optimization i need to work on.

I changed the site so that when you click an image it appears in the same window. But only for some, the environment i wanted to open in a new window because they are my newest work in the torque engine.

Added my low poly tank test I did at the beginning of the year and some other miscellaneous artwork.

Thanks for everyone's help, I really appreciate the feedback before I release my website to the surrounding companies