Recent graduate-Portfolio Site
polycounter lvl 9
Hello everyone, my name is Zac Berry and I just graduated from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I'm looking for a modeling job in the games industry, preferably working on characters. Please check out my website, and let me know what you think.
http://zacberry.com/
http://zacberry.com/
Replies
Only real problem I have is those damn buttons on the left side of your website. It's something thats not likely to matter, sure, but I'm a picky bitch and I think you can do a better job
I dunno, it's just the dom-war thing for example looks a lot nicer on the video turnaround.
I agree that you could put a bit more time into the site presentation, but I'd advise against putting the reel first. A portfolio site design doesn't have to be awesome, but it shouldn't bring down the rest of your work either. I immediately noticed some scaling artifacts going on with the title and buttons because you are using images that are too large.
You should throw up some pics of your Dom War wireframes and flats, too. I think your mechanical modelling skills look solid. Good luck with the job hunt.
I think the work is nice for the most part but it definately needs better lighting. At the moment everything shades to black, with muddy cast shadows. You want some bounce light (faked or GI...), stronger sunlight, that kind of stuff. Or, if you just want to show you modelling skills stick to something more simple like this
http://www.indigosm.com/senework/roadrunner2.jpg
At the moment it's a bit like halway through, which does not separate you from the student crowd.
edit : about the cart thing - It's sooo much cleaner and appealing than the rest!
Thanks, I'm glad you like the cart. I see that you are at Blizzard, and of course that would be my dream job (along with everyone else, I'm sure.) Due to time constraints, most of my organic stuff was rendered directly out of zbrush. Since this seems to be a problem, I will spend the next few days rendering turntables using the set-up with which I rendered the carts. I'm curious also, when you say the work seems halfway through, is there anything else you can suggest that might give me the edge I need? I have applied for the open position for Starcraft 2, and I feel that I could do well in a production environment. My main focus has been on modeling, but if untextured models or bad lighting is holding me back, I will focus my attention on those areas.
Well for the cart I think it works well because the envirenment you gave it sortof fits with the model itself : the shiny groud plane works well because it looks just like a mall floor somehow. I am not saying that every model should be presented that way...
As for the Zbrush renders/screengrabs I really see no problem with that, as a matter of fact with matgrabs, the cavity shader and the fake realtime shadows you can get great looks straight out of the app at no cost. Just avoid the red wax matgrab since it makes everyone I know want to throw up
I guess the question is : what do you want to show, and what is the best way to show it. This http://pici.se/pictures/XkzSjbeJb.jpg is another example of great presentation : sharp shadows help the readability, the bright material makes the shapes pop against their shading. It doesn't use any complex lighting, just two colored omnis I guess.
In my opinion the problem with your helicopter render is that you gave the cockpit a nice environment map giving a sense of a surrounding environment, but the rest of the render (shadows, grey box surrounding the model) does not fit with it. This is what I meant by halfway through. At the moment the image sits somewhere between an abstract render and realistic one. I'd say, pick one! (abstract being much faster and easier to setup!)
Good luck!
anyways http://pici.se/pictures/XkzSjbeJb.jpg is just a global illumination render with 2 colored point lights in maya rendered with grey background.. just try to put the lights where they will give of as much shadow contrast to the model as possible.
In a rare moment where I disagree with Pior, I have to say that is a pretty bad example of lighting and rendering. The shadows are all washed out and uniform, it makes it hard to see exactly what's going on. Looks like a ZBrush screen grab, which in general is not great for showing off modelling skills, unless you spend a lot longer setting up a "proper" zbrush render (in general it's probably easier to get a nice result by exporting to something like Max or Maya and render in there with advanced lighting).
Back on topic: overall you have a fairly strong portfolio, but I find the helicopter model quite strange - you have a few closeups which have loads of accurate detail, but the larger renders of the whole helicopter just show the overall forms as quite blobby and un-defined. Clearly you have the skills to model this, but it kinda looks like you rushed the fuselage and spent too long on all the tiny details. I think a bit more time spent tightening up the large shapes to be sharper and more defined in general would help this piece quite a lot.
Your anatomy studies seem fairly accurate, but a bit overly-defined and therefore don't appear very natural.
I think in general you need some more different examples of work, and a few more images to round out your portfolio. More textured work would definitely help too, there aren't that many game industry jobs where you will JUST be doing highpoly modelling, so having more examples of lowpoly/UV-mapped/textured objects will really help, even if they're just environment props rather than full characters.
Keep it up!
I'm loving your Zbrush work, but I have to agree with Mop. From your portfolio currently we all know you have the skill to model, and model quite well, now its time to show off your texturing ability, bring these creations to life
Good luck man
Trying to clarify : What I like about that one indigosm.com render is that the modeller didn't spend too long researching advanced lighting techniques and simply went for something rather common but good enough.
In some cases I find it more efficient than spending an evening worth of time messing with GI setups, light types and various renderers - since the same time could be spent concepting and modelling new cool stuff!
But yeah not the best example I guess. Still, I like it hehe :P
I have nothing to add really-- I think we're both in the same boat, we just need to keep plugging away and building our portfolios. But looking at Pior, MoP, and everyone else's posts, I will say this-- you're modeling is definitely strong, but you do need to focus more on your texturing. I think a large part of the lack of "completion" that everyone else is seeing is due more to the texture work than the lighting. Your Dom War model, for instance, still looks kind of muddy in color. I remember Tareq suggesting Crustaceans and sea life for color inspiration-- push that more and your dude's really going to pop.
Anyway, I'll leave it at that, since I'll be seeing you Tuesday.
Speaking of, are you going to the awards ceremony Tuesday after class? I received an invitation that "strongly encourages" me to attend... I think I might have won something. That, or they want to dangle the award in my face and then shatter my hopes and dreams in front of a live audience... We'll find out soon enough, I guess...
I'm hoping to get a bit more feedback, I have these environments that I did at an internship a while back. I'm not sure if I should put them in my demo or not, they are a bit old, and I would do a better job with this task now that I have added zbrush to my texturing pipeline. They are in a less than final state, and I no longer have access to the files to finish them up. However, I don't have too many texturing examples in my current reel, so I thought it might be needed to demonstrate an understanding of unwrapping and texturing. I would prefer to work on characters, but I have seen alot of job posting for environments, perhaps it will be easier to get my foot in the door that way. What do you guys think? Put them in, or keep them out?