Preparing a good Portfolio

rjhalvorson

Hey guys,

I just had a question for some of the veterans of polycount. I'm in my senior year right now in a media/animation program, and although I enjoy the field, I love working on environments, especially textures and lighting, and ultimately I have decided that even though I am going to finish the program, I want my focus to be on this aspect of animation or game development.

Therefor, I have 6 months to put together a portfolio that has a focus on this aspect of what I want to do. Are there any willing knowledgeable souls that could give me some possible advice on what items I should include, what types of scenes, what types of assets, texture layouts/forms, ect.

I will include my current website. Demo reel buttons do not work because I currently have no demo reel, but any advice on the current layout would be appreciated.

http://www.rjhalvorson.com

I'd especially like to hear from any individuals in the midwest because I would like to stay in this region and if there are people looking I would definitely like to hear what you like to see.

Thanks in advance,

Russ

Mark Dygert

Hi, glad to hear your an enviro junkie!

Crits:
1) Load screen's and flashy websites aren't what get you the job. The only loading that should go on after someone clicks your link, is of amazing images.
2) The header logo is GINORMOUS and not that great...
3) Clicking the image in the gallery brings up an image that is the same size. Pop up a bigger version in a new window or disable the clicking. Either way people will want to see larger images and less header...
4) Clicking back, after clicking on an image reloads the site, more menu sliding and flash...
5) Lastly, more content, which I guess is coming.

rjhalvorson

Vig wrote: »

Hi, glad to hear your an enviro junkie!

Crits:
1) Load screen's and flashy websites aren't what get you the job. The only loading that should go on after someone clicks your link, is of amazing images.
2) The header logo is GINORMOUS and not that great...
3) Clicking the image in the gallery brings up an image that is the same size. Pop up a bigger version in a new window or disable the clicking. Either way people will want to see larger images and less header...
4) Clicking back, after clicking on an image reloads the site, more menu sliding and flash...
5) Lastly, more content, which I guess is coming.

Thanks for the feedback, this is along the lines of what I've been thinking. I will probably just scrap the flash website and go for speed and effeciency. These were things I figured I'd probably have to change, but hearing someone else say them is good.

What do you think about content? I have one environment that I finished this past quarter that will be in it, and I want it to be my worst piece. So what do companies look for in an environment artist portfolio.

here is the piece

Eric Chadwick

Lighting is a bit monochromatic, could use some color variation, try some blue moonlight, or pull in some glancing sunset from that sky.

I would pump up the light spilling from the saloon, and dampen down the gas lamps, better drama to lead the eye toward wanting to enter the saloon.

This belongs in P&P.

Richard Kain

If you are going to be having a lot of environmental pieces, I'd say you should probably have at least one video for each environment. One of the best ways to showcase an environment on-line is with a quick fly-through. (I personally like it when these fly-throughs transition between lighting and wire-frame modes)

Your best bet for this is probably a pop-up window and a video encoded as an FLV file. If you can't find a flash video player for loading up FLVs on-line, I might be able to help you out.

Cojax

If I where you I would focus on props and modeling. Make some badass highpoly pieces. Use as much reference as you can. I see a lot of portfolios that have scenes with terrible lighting and it just puts you off. Bust out some solid badass models, those imo attract the most attention. I agree with whats been said about your site, make it as simple and straight forward as possible. Best of luck!

Joao Sapiro

Cojax, why is that when an enviro artist has good props and crappy lightning the first thing people say is "become a prop artist only" , if it sucks he can actually improve it and get to learn a bit about lightning an environment , but yeah busting out awesome pieces by itself will also help , improving the lightning can actually make the work itself better imo.

slightly drunk sorry.

Cojax

Drinking and posting. Put the wine cooler down Johny.

I guess what I'm getting at is to play towards your strength. But hey if you have the time work on lighting. Just saying might be easier to get a job with a lot more props then full on lighting enviro.

Peris

I think the textures in this piece can use a lot more work. Make them work together with the geometry, add a little dirt in corners, wear on outer corners, look on how materials look like in real life. For example the wooden barrel. This is how it looks like in real life: http://gallery.beachphotogallery.com/albums/album367/Wooden_Barrel.jpg
Look how the metal interacts with the wood, how the edges of the metal have some wear and highlights. You will have come a long way if you can translate those kind of details in your textures!

DInusty

the best thing i was ever told is try and break up the feel of 3d. for example you see the planks of wood that are like the deck in the front of the building? why are they all the same length? shift tones on some of those or there size or thickness. i think it looks pretty cool though to be honest. also it looks like there is blood near where it starts getting dark. if you want to tell a story about someone getting their ass beat hehe, put it more in the light. i think it would be awesome of the blood was comin out from under the wood deck so everyone is like wah? hehe. anywho looks great and could look even better with more work! keep it up.