more portfolio feedback

loose-canon

Thought I'd post my website for a crit. I do alright with freelance work but i'm focusing more on 3d game modeling. any suggestions welcomed. let the floodgates open. thx!

http://www.loose-canon.com

Rick Stirling

Flash. I was bored waiting.

Still bored.

Ah, it's loaded.

Music. Oh please no.

The flash wasn't worth the wait.


http://www.thejonjones.com/2005/10/07/your-portfolio-repels-jobs/

http://www.rsart.co.uk/2006/09/21/how-to-present-your-model-in-the-best-way-possible-for-feedback/

fweezah

yeah that pretty much was the long loading bar of my life. I think you should get rid of the flash and turn it all into html because it doesn't really match your work, neither does the music. And I don't know if you meant for it, but the two images on the side aren't lining up with the top one.

loose-canon

yea, old sound clip i'll prally pull off. i need to try to reduce the loading time, i know.

for the two images on the sides... one of those optimization things i guess. looks great in safari and explorer in os x but not on a pc. any suggestions on that??

Jarrod1937

you might want to make another topic for artwork critiques.
as for the site, it was a long load time even for my pretty fast internet connection, i have my computer hooked up to my home theater surround sound system and was listening to music at the time i opened your site... the sound clip at the beginning scared the crap out of me. generally avoid any sound on a site, its just wasted bandwidth (unless your site is sound related of course).

fmnoor

Your website is pretty noisy (especially with the thumbnails blending so well with your background image) - I think you could redo the entire thing and make better use of the space you have.

loose-canon

maybe a redesign would be best and i'll keep that in mind. but until then i'm gonna try to work with what i have. i knocked the swf down about 3-400k so that should help and removed the sound clip (for those of you who dislike my guitar playing, hehe, jk). I also remedied the side images that appeared "broken" on certain browsers...optimization is always annoying...

i don't really quite see what the argument against flash is with portfolios as long as it's being used effectively and isn't extremely flambouyant. granted html will probably always be more of a least common denominator for viewing optimizations, but what browser can't play swfs now? i don't think it's too ridiculous of an assumption to assume that the majority of computers can play basic flash files. plus, once the flash is loaded, *ahem i know, it's actually quicker to access different areas and images because well, it is already loaded. maybe i'm opening up a can of worms here, and i totally agree that there are a myriad of flash sites that are just a pain in the ass to load, let alone navigate, but i also get sick of waiting for html to load with every click too. that out of the way, i have been considering the move back to html. seems like regression but if that's what it takes...

Rick Stirling

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i don't really quite see what the argument against flash is with portfolios as long as it's being used effectively and isn't extremely flambouyant

[/ QUOTE ]

I have no issue with this, yet I rarley see this done.

A well designed site that uses templates for the common items such s header, footer and navigation, and that uses a separate style sheet will load very fast. With swf it loads the entire site, including the bits I don't want to see.

Yes browsers can support flash. Well done flash is superb.

Sage

The problem with Flash is that it's usually slower than html sites and people looking at thousands of reels are not going to wait for it to load. It's similar to having a splash page in your site instead of showing off your best work right away. If the person looking at your site isn't impressed immediately they will close it and move on, simple as that. It takes 30 secs for it to finish loading and doing the animated start screen. Let me say that it felt like it took forever. Firefox doesn't have the flash plugin installed by default.

Your graphic design skills are sweet. Your 3D section is pretty weak. I based that on the wireframes of the meshes. There seems to be a ton of wasted polys on your models and from the work there it's not clear the range you have. All the work seems to be in the same style cartoony. If someone wants to see if you can do more realistic work they won't be able to tell from looking at the work. Your best bet is to show more than one style or go with one that the employer you are targeting uses for their game.

Rick thanks for taking the time to write that up very useful.

Alex

Joao Sapiro

i second what sage said, i would invest more in your art before the website imo...

loose-canon

thx for the feedback - always trying to improve..