[Porfolio] Karl Stjernberg

Karl Stjernberg

I just finished working on my portfolio, and thought "Why not post it on polycount and see what people think of it?"
Go hog wild with comments and critique, suggestions and complaints.

www.karlstjernberg.se

Are you an employer? Why not check it out and see if I meet your requirements?
My internship period is just about to start!

But honestly, tell me if there is anything wrong with the layout and/or the work that I've submitted so far.

Thank you!

Johan Carlsson

Yo dude! Nice to see your stuff coming up on the net too

BUT! You have got to do something about the pipes on the Dirty Fan!
Otherwise things were looking good

Karl Stjernberg

Thanks Johan, but would you mind being a little bit more specific?

Kawe

You also go to the school of very dark environments?

Johan Carlsson

Yes, we do. Heh. But we're trying to improve!! ;P

Karl, the two small pipes bending into the fan are looking weird. The texture you have on the is too busy. Perhaps try putting on a less busy texture. Because right now it's kind of hard to see their shape.

Karl Stjernberg

Kawe: It's that bad, is it? I'll look into it first thing tomorrow!

Johan: Hm, you may be right about that. Looks like I've got something to do after I'm finished lighting up the environment.

SHEPEIRO

karl, yes the pipes let that prop down, some more polies and tighter spec/material properties could sort it. alos the normal map doest seam to be doing anything/enough in this area making loosing the shape here.

i would suggest extracting the fan onto a seperate mesh whether it be simple plane or modeled mesh and have it spin, things like that make envs. so much better and it shows thinking about how objects may work in game environments, and adding life to an env is more than just nice texturing. a simple .gif would help sell the prop

with your env. peice, add a strong light at the end of the tunnel it will sell the depth and add light to the scene without messing with the setup you have currently.

Martin Henriksson

It already is a plane that can spin says so on the page.

SHEPEIRO

oh yeah... well stick in the gif then ;-P

Karl Stjernberg

I touched up the lighting on the level a bit, to make it a bit brighter:
http://karlstjernberg.se/images/work_03/render.jpg

I am also seriously concidering making a gif of that fan, after the revamp of those tubes that is.

Kawe

the problem with that environment shot is that the focal point is the door opening and uhm.. I can't really make out what those spikes are and they are just blocking my view atm. very annoying.

also the spikes are kind of pointing AWAY from the focal point so the eye starts there and quickly gets directed to the end of the tunnel. if you want to keep the spikes I'd at least make the end of the tunnel more of a focal point then. else I'd suggest rethinking it a little and see how you can make the door opening more interesting. it's kind of a letdown right now.

EDIT: if you had a person standing there by the door opening it'd make a lot more sense. cause the thing in the roof would be pointing down on that person and the spikes would be pointing on that person too. right now there's just nothing to look at.

hope I'm making any sense

Karl Stjernberg

Well, both yes and no. See, the idea of the level is the player being iside of a kind of maintenance shaft, where an explosion has occured. Yeah, that would be those "spikes" you are referring to.

Uhm, I realize now the problem with having to explain the environment, since good portfolio pieces should be self explanatory, but maybe writing a little bit more about it could help people figuring out what they are looking at. At least untill I can figure out a better way of making it obvious.

ivars

I think your scene would benefit from a less busy backdrop. Put the focus in the scene.

Karl Stjernberg

Roger that, ivars!

edit: Minor update on the portfolio. I changed the background, and I must say it looks a lot better already!
Thank you all for the crits, and don't hold back on any if you see something thats bugging you!

SHEPEIRO

btter id suggest upping the background light much more, its basically a rim light and i usually go for a strength of two or higher to really bring those shapes out. depends on engine/renderer.

if you can add some light blueish distance fog aswell it will complement the light

last of all some rubble spilling out of the hole and some sharpe specular on the metal edges around the hole will really help make the scene more readable

Karl Stjernberg

Don't mean to be a repetative dork, but I polished up the lighting a bit more again.
(Honestly now - tell me if I'm getting boring, okay?)

Jonas Ronnegard

Your getting boring! -_-......... :P jokes aside, i think it's alot better now, but i think the space outside the pipe looks weird not being totally black but have a red looking black, well maybe it's fog i don't know :P

Jeremy Lindstrom

also note the story, you have an implosion currently not an explosion unless it happened outside in..

Kawe

ooh, this is a lot better. now I can actually tell what is going on. I was going to suggest the blue light thing too but I couldn't really visualize it so I didn't. looks good.

SHEPEIRO

yeah jonas is right the Space and starfeild would be much better being black looks like the backboard is lit by a red light remove it from the lighting solution.

other thing is some light bouncing would be nice, esp from the blue light.

my suggestion of rubbly crapcoming in from the outside is totally off considering it in space (i should read more carefully) but maybe some more girders or supports bursting in through the hole would add to it.

and lighting can take a few itterations so dont worry about repeating yourself, get it right ;-)

will do a paint over for you

edit- ok this is what i would try
1 the light from out side, from a sun im geussing, would have very sharpe shadows, and a white colour contrasts nicely with the red an blues inside making it easyier to tell whats going on.
2 the tunnels light is stronger, and catches on the pipes from the ceiling, if this doesnt work in reality fake it with some spots (do what films do they put lights all sorts of places with wouldnt work in reality but adds to the "drama"
3 added some blue atmosphere, again in a vacume not so realistic so i added some leaking pipes.

Karl Stjernberg

Shepeiro: Whoa, thanks for the effort! I'm not too sure I'll have the proper time to fix all of that tomorrow in school since we're currently knee deep in a game project, but I think I'll manage to at least give it a try and see how it turns out.

The fan that people have been remarking on has been a bit revamped at least, and I think the dark color of the tubes now make it look a little bit more interesting:
http://karlstjernberg.se/images/work_05/render.jpg

I'll see what I can do about the whole animated-gif-thingy too, so that it's a bit more obvious that the fan blade can rotate in "reality".

Again, thank you all for the critisicm!

SHEPEIRO

the fans pipes are alot better now. have some shape to them.

i like lighting ;-)

Karl Stjernberg

wzooooommmmm... wzooooooooom...
(That's what a big fan sounds like, right?)

ivars

that animation's got one frame to many ^^

Karl Stjernberg

I feel like such a thread-bump-asshole, but I've fixed the gif.
Thanks for noticing!
(You might have to refresh it though.)