My profolio site.
polycounter lvl 17
Hey everyone. I just finish my profolio website. I was wondering if you all can have a look at it and critque some of my work. Thanks.
www.stu.aii.edu/~dtt311
www.stu.aii.edu/~dtt311
Replies
As for the site, I can't say I care for flashy console type sites, unless you are going for a web design position. The work you have up is good but I don't see too many finished pieces which worries me that you might have a short attention span for projects and might not finish what you start?
Grey text on a grey background, not a good idea, maybe add a drop shadow or a glow to help it stand out.
Its nice that you can use photos for textures but make sure you are consistant. Either paint up the photos to look more like the hand painted parts or use nothing but photos.
Most of the time you will not be able to use name brand products unless specific deals are worked out. This is a chance to show how imaginative you can be, come up with your own brand or spoof the brand you are trying to copy.
You have a lot of stuff on there of varying qualities, so keep the good stuff. With that in mind:
Drop the characters. Drop the 2d section. Ditch the animation.
That still leaves you with a vehicle and environment portfolio.
Drop the counter right now, it serves to advertise how unpopular the site is. No-one but you needs to know how many visitors you've had, so if you want stats, use a hidden counter or a stat tracker.
You should probably learn that it's called a 'portfolio' too. ;-)
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Lol, my mistake. I met portfolio.
It also helps to save up your replies because normally when you reply to others about a topic you started, it is close to the end of the threads life span. By you replying so early you are kind of sending a signal that the thread is drawing to a close.
You're new here so we can cut you some slack, and its a good thing Gauss is off globe trotting otherwise he might slap your wrist for posting in the wrong place and spam replying =P
I find this to be a blatant infringement on my privacy, as i find it hard to imagine they just happened to GUESS i'm a fatass.
additionally, clicking the more button a few times rapidly doesn't take you to the next page, it get's you stuck in a sort of fade-in/fade-out loop, and the content seems a tad confusing... what are you aiming for?
For example the black guy, is he meant to be low or highpoly? the rendering and lack of wires suggest high, but the perceived low definition says another thing entirely.
And if lowpoly, what are you shooting for: character or environment? While i'm not the kind of person who believes you can only show one specific range of your talent in a portfolio, it does help to give off the message that you didn't just do one or two doodles that fit what the company's looking for, but rather that you choose the best you had, from a wide range. Now i'm not one to talk, lacking any sort of a portfolio, so i hope to avoid the pitfalls i'm preaching about here myself, heh
However, I have done short films and animations...your character animation is weak...the beginning of the demo with the guy sitting in the car with nothing happening other than the annoying music playing for what seems like a min is bad. I get the idea that when the car moves, things start dropping down...but it is not as clear as can be..needs better editing.
I would like to know if your demo is to show your modelling skills, or animation skills? or other areas? But keep in mind I am not a game developer (as of now), so if my questions seem irrelevant, ignore them.
Aside from that, I'd agree with what has been said already. Most definitely ditch that counter that links to weight loss pill site. Also, I can't see your demo reel - the link won't open, while the animated short works. I'm not a fan of pop-ups, so if you could get rid of them and load images within your website, that would be nice. And one final thing: since you're using Flash, there's nothing easier than to change the typeface and embed just about any font you like, so then why use Times New Roman?
So... don't forget, this is your portfolio and it should portray you in the best possible way, and small things that you don't even think about can ruin the good impression, especially if you let them pile up.
Always use lower case for html tags, and ensure every tag, even the line breaks, are closed
<div style="text-align:center;">
hello, I'm shotgun and I'm applying for the position of purple shadows.<br />
My experience is school (sort of) and various sports(tv).<br />
<a href="mailto:myemail@mysite.com">email me</a><br /><br />
<img src="myimage01.jpg" alt="Description"/><br />
<img src="myimage02.jpg" alt="Description"/><br />
<img src="myimage03.jpg" alt="Description"/><br />
</div>
What you need to do is...
Kill your flash site make a html one.
Kill your 2d section, it makes you look like a 6 year old.
Show only your best 3d work, a few good works is better than a lot of mehhh.
Your site should only be one page for your art (front page), one page for your resume, and one for your contact info.
No fancy flash, no next page, just art and info.
Sentient: I went to that site, waited for the flash to load, navigated menus, clicked tiny thumbnails to find some mediocre 3d art and totally lost interest.
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Same. Also found some uncredited work off of a Hawkprey concept.
Edit: Oh, all of the good stuff is in the game projects section.
Show only your best 3d work, a few good works is better than a lot of mehhh.
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And a lot of good work is better than a few good works. Keep cranking it out, getting boughed down in site design is a killer, make your site as simple as possible and don't bother learning more webcrap than what you actually need. Because when all is said and done you'll go right back to making art (not sites) once you land a job. It's best you spend your time cranking out good art and getting better than worrying about site design.
You can see a progression in your work and you are getting better with each piece you do, so keep at it (the art that is). Idealy you want people to come to your site and say "what a horrible site, but the art, WOW! We have to hire this guy". No one is going to say "That art is great! He can do this job better than anyone else we have seen, BUT his site sucks we shouldn't hire him" when the art is really good.
Art needs to be the focus, it needs to be accessable and it needs to be presented in a fast and user friendly way. The site shouldn't be the focus, and judging by the comments so far it is stealing focus from the art. The site should be something that blends into the background and brings out the art.
Really, honestly, either go with Rick's thread or go PhotoShop > File > Automate > Web Gallery. I went the PhotoShop route and learned VERY little HTML to get my site up and running its easy to update and I can give it any look I want fairly quickly. Feel free to duplicate it just use your own graphics.
Sentient: I went to that site, waited for the flash to load, navigated menus, clicked tiny thumbnails to find some mediocre 3d art and totally lost interest. He may have some great art on that site, but how many have the patience and time to find out?
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I was attempting to be ironic. Apparently it didn't work.
Same. Also found some uncredited work off of a Hawkprey concept.
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I believe this concept was used as an art test by one of the companies. I forget which though.
Edit: The company is Legend. He acknowledges Jay Hawkins in the Unreal 2 section of the website.
Wow. It is stealing alot of focus. How do I edit the design in photoshop? Also, how do I link the pages? Thanks.
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Same. Also found some uncredited work off of a Hawkprey concept.
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I believe this concept was used as an art test by one of the companies. I forget which though.
Edit: The company is Legend. He acknowledges Jay Hawkins in the Unreal 2 section of the website.
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Ah. Figured he had a legitimate reason to be using it, just didn't dig enough to see him give the credit.
Ricks method of slapping a site together is the quickest and easiest way. It also makes it very easy to update once you do the setup. Sure it sounds complicated but once you dig into it and get over the setup its very very easy. The only problem with just doing the Adobe Web Gallery is the look, its not very customizable and they all look the same. It doesn't give you room to add comments (easily) and it pretty much only does a slide show. Who ever you send your site too will more than likely see 20-30 of the Adobe Web Galleries which is nice for them since it is quick and easy but yours won't stand out unless you tweak it.
Here is what I did, in a nutshell if you need me to expand on anything let me know.
In photoshop I drew up the top title and nav bar, Painted the lights for the roll overs on a seperate layer.
Then ported it over to Image Ready, the bottom most button on the Photoshop tools pallet. Image ready isn't the most friendly program to use but it gets the job done.
- In image ready you can slice an image into sections and tell image ready how you want to save that section, as text, as a roll over or as an image. When you start working with Image Ready have the "roll overs" pallet out (Windows > Roll Overs) this lets you add the roll over states, for that state just turn on or off the layer(s) you want. Also have the "slices pallet" out since this is where you set the slice perfernaces and where you link slices/buttons to web pages.
- To link a slice/button to a page, in the roll overs pallet right click the slice you want and choose "add roll over state" then click the roll over and in the slices pallet you can set the URL.
- Then do a "save-as optimized" and check your work in your browser of choice. Image Ready has a preview function but I skip it as it's not actually testing it like a user would.
After you bang your head on the Image Ready wall a few times you'll get the hang of it.
My site is made up of 4 HTML pages and 3 frames;
http://www.vigville.com/nav.html
The nav bar on the left. Very simple and was done in Image Ready.
http://www.vigville.com/header.html
Which is the header at the top very simple also done in image ready. Its one slice that links to my main page.
http://www.vigville.com/main.html
This has 3 links to the main sections I want people to visit and a small news post. This "frame" gets targeted and switched out any time someone clicks a link. The other two frames never change so you can always get back to the main page, and you can always navigate to another section.
http://www.vigville.com/index.html
This tells the "frames" how to behave its very simple yet effective. Just view source on it and see what I'm talking about. You can adjust each frame how you see fit but changing the rows and cols numbers. replace the URL's with those on your site.
Frames display multipule HTML pages in the same page, its really old technology and works in just about every browser known to man. You have two static frames top and left, and one that is targeted and changed.
- For the different galleries just use the Adobe Web Gallery tool. I'm sure I left something important out but thats the jist of it.
The problem with framesets is that they are hard to bookmark and spiders can't get to them.
Just make a table for your site.
The easiest way to do this if you can't see it in your head is either lay it out on paper or in Photoshop with layers or both. Write down on the image how many cells and rows you need. It's also very fast once you stop complaining and thinking about the code. I usually rightout one line that is repeated over and over and just copy and paste and modify as needed. The reason i prefer to do it this way is because making a table in say Dreamweaver can be very annoying. It someties screws with you when you make changes.
www.htmlgoodies.com is a good site that is free and shows you how to do it all. Plus it's a good read, not boring as hell like most html, css, and javascript books.
If I was going to make your site as you have it now with basic code it would look similar to that. I would move the navigation bar up to the top since right now on a small monitor it looks like nothing is loading unless you scroll down.
Tags and what they mean
<table> makes table
<tr> makes row
<td> makes cells
If you want you images to be flush together without seams like say Vigs layout would require, you would have to specify in the table tag
<table border=0 cellspacing=0>
Check out my site code to see what I mean or try it yourself.
Find out the CSS to format the text on your site and add the rollover fx. It's easy. That's your homework to do. Also once you make your first page you'll want the rest of the pages to have the same design since it makes it look more professional. To make it easy I usually layout my first page say it's the 3d page then I will make a copy of that html file and rename it 2d, then edit the images for the newer ones. Also if you are clever about how you layout your code you can quickly update your links with a find/replace function found in a text editor like Editpad.
The first line would be the nav bar and I would make that with another table maybe.
the table would be like this.
<table border=0 align=center>
<tr>
<td>home</td>
<td>3D Art</td>
<td>Resume</td>
<td>Contact</td>
</tr>
</table>
That table goes inside this one in the first line. This may or me not be needed. I avoid if I can cause I find it messy.
<html>
<title>my site name</title>
<body bgcolor= black>
<table border=0 align=center>
<tr><td>first line</td></tr>
<tr><td>image</td>><td>image</td>><td>image</td>><td>image</td>
<tr><td>image</td>><td>image</td>><td>image</td>><td>image</td>
</table>
</body>
</html>
I hope that helps.
Alex
Honestly I couldn't give a rats ass what the best "code" is to use. It worked, I got a job and I'm back to making art with little time spent dorking around with HTML crap. I mean no disrespect for the proper way of doing things, had I known, I would have done things the proper way. But it worked, so meh...
I'll keep your post saved if I ever need to update my site I should switch it over. I learned just enough to get it working and that was all I was interested in, I had art to make =P
Thanks for the info
- I deleted all the fades
- deleted the wack ass 2d section
- deleted the blinking buttons
- deleted my animated short
- Added my Demo Reel
Hopefully it's more user friendly than before. I am still working on fixing the pop ups. Comments and Critques are still welcome for the current layout. Thanks.
www.stu.aii.edu/~dtt311
I checked out the site yesterday, and then today--it's looking better. I totally missed all the 3D stuff you had--I thought it was just the car, gun, and the guy. The stuff on the "more" pages made more of an impression on me than the ones on the first page, but it's easy to miss! Try and lay as much out on the first impression if you can.
Maybe have some friends/family who *haven't* seen your site browse it with you sitting there. Don't tell them where to go--just watch them and see what they look at or don't look at. Best of luck.
Also, the text on the About me page reads like a primary school homework. My name is Rick. I like cars. I like to go to the park.
Far too many of the sentences begin with 'I'.
Rick, I do not know why it's so small on you computer. It is pretty big on mine.
I see a ton of portfolios a day and interview at least 1 person a day based off their portfolio and the pieces they've included. Based on your stuff I wouldn't consider you for a junior position. That's not meant to be insulting, I just think you need to do your own thing now that you know what you know from attending AI.
Delete everything you've done at the school and do your portfolio with the knowledge you gained from taking the course. Don't apply to companies with the projects you had at AI. Consider it a time of learning, research in to other peoples portfolios, see what they've done, see who works at companies and who does not and gauge your portfolio pieces on that (and don't be afraid to get creative).
I see a ton of portfolios a day and interview at least 1 person a day based off their portfolio and the pieces they've included. Based on your stuff I wouldn't consider you for a junior position. That's not meant to be insulting, I just think you need to do your own thing now that you know what you know from attending AI.
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Mostly all of the work was not done from school projects. The only ones I did for school on my site is the guy and the car. Everything else was done for the company I intern for and for fun.
Hey Vig, I know how to do the web gallery in photoshop but it won't let me customize the background pic. How do I do that?
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Don't have time to check and comment on the site, but I can answer this Q, I looked in the HTML file for the background color and changed it to what I wanted, I also filled in the shadow images with the same color.
All the textures that go with an object put as one link and combine the textures in ps so when you click the link you see them all.
Arange all the things in the same order, like with texture, wireframe, and texture.
From the props side cut off the bottom row of stuff. From the environments side cut the prison for sure.
Youl only be showing 6 things but they will be your best 6 things and make you look ten times better.
Drop the number of things your showing to 18 and make the thumbnails bigger.
All the textures that go with an object put as one link and combine the textures in ps so when you click the link you see them all.
Arange all the things in the same order, like with texture, wireframe, and texture.
From the props side cut off the bottom row of stuff. From the environments side cut the prison for sure.
Youl only be showing 6 things but they will be your best 6 things and make you look ten times better.
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Vig, I got everything exported from the photoshop. How do I post it on the website? I upload all the files to the website but it comes out with a x on the pictures.
http://stu.aii.edu/~dtt311/index1.html
Also, how do I arrange the pictures in the order I want? Right now, they auto arrange the pictures.
stu.aii.edu/~dtt311
Instead of making another thread I just decided to continue here. I bought my domain name and updated my demo reel. I wanted you all to check out my demo reel and give me some comments and suggestions. Thanks.
www.3dtruong.com
When I go to the about me page I have to scroll an internal scroll bar to read the information. The most I can get is 12 lines of text. 12 lines with no paragraph breaks, it's an utter pain to read.
Your main site block is 700 x 400 pixels. 400 high. Your actual content area on the resume and about page is 400 x240. That's TINY.
When I click 3d art it them says 'I know you wanted to see 3d art, so you clicked the 3d art menu item, but I want you to click again'.
Another thing I'll mention is that you should be consistent with giving out polycount and texture size information on your reel. Somewhere it is present, and somewhere it isn't. I'd say add the info where it is missing and don't make a viewer look through your portfolio to find polycount for certain model.
I hope this helps. You have some nice work there. Good luck!
And agreed about the music...
hope it helps