Need some advice
As the title may allude to I am in need of some advice, Im a long time forum viewer first time poster (for various reasons). Essential everyone I know who works in the gaming industry which is a fairly short list but a list never the less told me that if I want to get in I should start a mod. Which is what I did three years ago http://www.pointofexistence.com/ (thats the mod I started and worked on for last three years). Never the less I was told this would be a sort of prelude to getting a job and open up many doors for me. However 3 years later I feel like no doors have opened up.
Naturally I have my own portfolio webpage, which I make sure to mention whenever I apply anywhere congruently, I mention my work on PoE. Yet it seems like there is yet to be any opportunities arising from my work. I know I have a long ways to go as an artists, but I believe my skills are on above many people coming out of various schools. On top of which Ive been involved in and led a great mod team for several years during which we have gotten a ton of acclaim.
So basically what Im asking is for a little insight as to why I am passed over by companies? I feel my art skills are good enough to work in this industry yet time and time again nothing comes up.
Any advice would be helpful, as much as I like working as a copy boy at a law office I think its time for a change.
Thanks,
-Matt
Naturally I have my own portfolio webpage, which I make sure to mention whenever I apply anywhere congruently, I mention my work on PoE. Yet it seems like there is yet to be any opportunities arising from my work. I know I have a long ways to go as an artists, but I believe my skills are on above many people coming out of various schools. On top of which Ive been involved in and led a great mod team for several years during which we have gotten a ton of acclaim.
So basically what Im asking is for a little insight as to why I am passed over by companies? I feel my art skills are good enough to work in this industry yet time and time again nothing comes up.
Any advice would be helpful, as much as I like working as a copy boy at a law office I think its time for a change.
Thanks,
-Matt
Replies
1) You have a splash page. You should show your gallery right away.
2) Your gallery loads extremely slowly. Bad news for people looking threw portfolios all day.
3) You show no poly/tri counts anywhere in your gallery. The only image I think that might have a tri count which is the image that possibly has LOD's doesn't load.
4) Your resume is hard to read because of the background and your resume shows that you "Obtain a job working for a game production studio, with an enthuse on environment modeling." This may be a problem as most of your models are vehicles and not environments.
5) In fact, most of your text is hard to read because of the background. This is something I would definitely change.
6) While it is nice to show your textures, employers would like to see them without the nasty watermarks because it makes it hard to see the full detail.
7) On some of your wireframe view models I can see 6 sided polygons which is not something you want to be showing in a high polygon model. In game art and in high poly art anything over 4 sides/verts is a bad thing. You should only be working with 3-4 verts or sides = tris-polys.
8) Work on your grammar, I know my own in this post is horrible but on your links page it is bad as well.
"How can I not put my beloved mod on here! Stop by download the game and enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Ill add some more links when I get around to it Hopefully one to a studio I`m working at!! Hint! Hint!"
If you can not see the problem spots in that quote of yours then you need to seriously look it over again and again.
A lot of the time you will need to convey problems or opinions in written format. This means that you must apply proper grammar / punctuation. That or, at least be able to do it well enough to make things presentable.
When applying start with a short and to the point cover letter with an attached word doc copy of your resume. Provide a link to your website in your email and move on to the next application.
As your resume says you want to be an environmental artist yet you show nothing but vehicles I am wondering what positions you have been applying for. If you are applying to just environmental artist positions with this port then the main reason you aren't getting a job is because your have vehicle art and no environments.
Hope that answers some of your questions.
Remember, you're not selling the mod any more, you're selling yourself as a member of a team where you're expected to work to firm deadlines, resource constraints, financial budgets etc ... your resume could really expand on how you could slot smoothly into this based on what you learnt running the mod. You're right to think it's something to be proud of, so beef it up! As it reads at the moment, it's almost sounds like generic stuff that you see on a million resumes. "Coordinated staff ... responsible for 30+ people" both sounds great in theory ... but what OF it? How smooth did you make the process, how did you improve things, what problems did you face and overcome? Don't waffle on and on, but you could boil this information down to a few bullet points, this will really improve your resume
since this is P&P ... portfolio-wise, if i was to pick something that would hurt your chances of landing an interview, its your textures. On the whole, they're not much more than flat patterns with noise filters, spread over what looks like overkill texture space (post UV layouts?). And then ... you watermark them. All over. Mnaaaaargh! Trust me, no-one's gonna steal your noise, you do NOT have to worry about this. It smacks of slight arrogance to be honest, and really brings your portfolio down. Remember the thing about selling yourself as much as your work ... if you come across like a bit of a cock even slightly, you're gonna do yourself no favours
good luck with it though, i think you're in quite a strong position to land that first job ... just consider what you're showing a bit more carefully
edit ... oh, and it's called 3d studio max, not "3D Max Studio". You're sending this to art directors who know!
I apply for several positions, normally just 3d artist position, rarely do I see a position that pertains to art Ive done on the modification.
Ill try to work on some of the things you mentioned when I get home from work, thanks again for your comments.
Your portfolio repels jobs
read it, love it, live by it
your banner/menu is the same size as the window you're displaying your art in.
Trust me, no-one's gonna steal your noise, you do NOT have to worry about this.
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Funny you should say that, I have actually had artwork stolen from me. Person who stole it claimed it as their own, and I guess that made me a bit apprehensive.
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7) On some of your wireframe view models I can see 6 sided polygons which is not something you want to be showing in a high polygon model. In game art and in high poly art anything over 4 sides/verts is a bad thing. You should only be working with 3-4 verts or sides = tris-polys.
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I haven't found a really good shader that displays all my edges, I know for instance on the bmp2 it doesn't display edges on alot of the hatches, but they are there. I figured a wireframe was beter then nothing at all.
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Yeah, your page has way too much art in the layout, and not enough of your actual art.
your banner/menu is the same size as the window you're displaying your art in.
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I'm currently working on a seperate gallery within there, one for 3dsmax stuff, another for maya and possibly a sketch book gallery. It wont open into the same small space it will be a new window. Should have mentioned that at start of post
Thanks for the advice,
-Matt
If you want to get really sneaky about it, you can set up a script (or maybe one is out there already?) that does all this for you then undoes it after it renders...
About the site:
- Your header reloads each time, it needs to be static and load only once.
- Open with your gallery not the about page. You're bringing them to your site to see your art and evalutate you artistic skills. The about page is suplemental fluff and is not critical, it will be one of the last things people will want to check or click on before giving you a call. I bet if you ask most people who have portfolios what kind of traffic the about page gets it will be VERY little. This doesn't mean hit it with them first it means it is of low priority to the person viewing.
- The page seems short, it would be nice if it scaled with the browser. It seems like I'm using a magnifiing glass to look at a puzzle and I have to hunt up and down to find what I want. Any time you have someone hunting for things there is a chance they will just bag it and move on. No one is looking for an interactive multimedia experience (which you didn't do thankfully) and no one wants an egg hunt. Give them early access to the whole of your art and keep it coming.
Good luck it looks like you have potential, I wish you well
You need to get some variety in your personal art and then customize your folio for the company you are applying to.
For example when I applied at Pandemic I knew they had just released Destroy all Humans so I made sure the folio I showed them had some stylized hand painted textures on low poly objects/characters to show I could fit in with their art direction.
Its not just about how you present yourself as an artist its also about giving them the confidence that you will hit the ground running and learn as you go because for all you know they will want you to change package, art style and area of art 5 months into your employment (trust me this happens).
Been updating it over past week or so, as well as ammending my resume a bit, have a cover letter and all that written up. Neways, hope im moving along the right track.
-Matt
I honestly didn't even know there were more models down the scroll bar at first. I would make it more obvious or the window larger. A lot of people will put thumbnails along the sides or something, or get rid of the entire scroll bar thing completely. Your overall skill and models are great, but the presentation just doesn't work. At the minimum you need to make the size of that scroll bar much larger.
Look at some of these guys around here who know what they are doing and get the layout to your site similar to what they have.
The content is important as well. You're sort of limiting yourself to military sims in your portfolio. Get a few different assets showing that you can do realistic, cartoony, sci-fi, western...like they said above - most game companies where you are going to start at getting your foot in the door are doing all sorts of games and you never know what your next project could be.
Get rid of that blob mesh at the bottom too. That's not helping you any. I also don't see the need to show that blinding checker box UVW mapping. Your texturing shows us that you know how to unwrap moreso than that horrifying white and black madness.
P.S. Get rid of that nasty "High Res" wire render at the bottom of that Jet. The geometry is bad bad. The model looks fine overall shaded, but that wire is going to raise 100 red flags. If I were you, and wanted to impress, I would consider doing a LOT of edge cleanup on that model (The rear and tailfins especially). There are a few other models that could use some cleanup as well...but that one is the biggest offender.