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[Portfolio] - David O'Brien, Environment/Prop Artist

Hey everyone. I am about to graduate in Game Art & Design in a few weeks and before I do I was hoping for some good critiques of my work. Please tell me all about what you think of the site, and my work. Really more on rendering and quick changes right now because there is so little time left before I need to be done.

O ya and I am looking for a job. :)

Thanks for all your help!

www.OBrien3D.net

O and I just got the site up and on Internet Explorer it is showing up wrong so just use Mozilla to view it and it will hopefully be fine for you :)

Replies

  • PixelMasher
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    PixelMasher veteran polycounter
    hey man,

    the 1st thing that stood out at me on your site was that the background didn't tile very well, there is a obvious shift from light to dark on the concrete tiles. this right away made me look at your textural ability. actually a plain darker background or gradient would probably look better than what youve got right now, it would probably look more professional.

    There is good ideas behind all the work, solid concepts you have chosen to work from. I would say you should focus on your texture skills, thats what immediately jumped out to me. There are blurred/undetailed textures in all your pieces, looking at the texture sheet for the wall piece thing i couldn't really see much detail work on the texture sheet.

    really give some loving to your textures, thats what will usually catch gamers eyes, especially floor and walls, they take up 80% of the screen. Your lighting in the wall assault scene seems kinda dim and could use with some brightening up and some color in the light itself. the work shows promise and i think if you apply these general comments plus the multitude im sure you will get from other PC'ers here your next pieces should turn out increasingly better. I wouldn't recommend going back and trying to update/fix your old work, move onto something new and fresh. now here is something that could seem pretty harsh and maybe unbelievable but ive been told this by many art directors and people in charge of hiring:

    as soon as you are done with school, take what you did and throw it all away(well maybe keep it backed up :P). start a new portfolio, with high quality work using the foundations of what you have learned in school. the main thing you want to do is break away from the portfolio of someone who recently just graded from an art school. most people can spot these types of portfolios immediately and that usually isn't a good thing.

    With a new spankin' folio in a couple months you could probably net a job pretty quick if the work you pump out is high quality. with the general shortage of jobs at the moment in most areas for beginner artists I wouldn't recommend shopping around an AI reel to make a 1st impression, especially with so many studios closing and experienced artists looking for art jobs at the same time.

    Finally, I would recommend taking your personal synopsis off your site, or atleast the part that says the "newest 3D Environment & Prop Artist’s website portfolio"

    I hope this hasnt been to harsh, I kinda feel like an ass every time i say this to people just gradding school. Your work shows promise for sure man, the crusader room is your best example i think, and its good to see you have some ingame work that you did, thats always an asset. best of luck man, cant wait to see some more work!
  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    Pixel got you good, so I just toss a quick on at you: The background is a poor tile, and your logo has a bad tile. As an employer I wouldn't go any further because I've already seen enough. Never waste time on web site art. Let your content speak for itself. Keep your site clean and professional instead of geocities circa 1996.
  • kukk
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    kukk polycounter lvl 17
    Btw, the page screws up in IE.
    But who cares about IE anyway.

    Stop making normalmaps like this:
    http://www.obrien3d.net/images/category3/trashcan.jpg
  • jstoner
    I'm using the IE 7, and while the page did not mess up for me, it did crash my browser when i clicked on one of the crusader room images. maybe it's not common, but it may be something to look into.
  • Matroskin
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    Matroskin polycounter lvl 11
    i like the overall site layout.

    As I could notice, your textures mostly seem to be too dark. Also you might need to improve your lighting because, for example, in crusader room the table and map are lit by invisible light source and shadows are almost black that means you did not use much of radiosity.
  • pliang
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    pliang polycounter lvl 17
    From the looks of it, it seems the normal maps are ran through Crazybump without much anything else, you might want to search the forums for the thread in regards to adding height maps as well.

    Shepeiro and strangefate's work might be more visually helpful.

    From what I see it seems more like a bump map is added in.

    The layout is good, but the background is a real eyesore, take what has been said and changing it would give a much better initial impression. Stay on top of your game and just take on more ambitious projects than the school work you currently have, showing use of concepts would be good approach as well.
  • DudeinCA
    ya i was really reluctant about the background anyways. but ill definitely change it now.

    thanks for the critiques
  • Harry
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    Harry polycounter lvl 13
    does the garand count as a game prop?
  • DudeinCA
    uh ya i guess. its not really high poly enough for like a 1st person shooter.
  • System
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    System admin
    No disrespect but the site is awful looking, cholden hit a major point about being clean there. In retrospect you could have all that detail if it blended correctly without too much distraction but I think it doesn't for a reason...
    Your environment with the battering ram didn't compliment the model at all, there was virtually no contrast between the subject and background so I think you need to take a step back and try to look at the big picture, this is the major flaw I see because your individual model and render of the ram was really nice.
  • fattkid
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    fattkid polycounter lvl 15
    I think you've got some pretty decent work overall. I feel the presentation is kind of bringing it down a little, for reasons mentioned above. Maybe spend some time checking out other artists websites and see how they approach presenting their work as effeciently or aesthetically pleasing as possible. I think another good rule of thumb is to think about the HR folks/Art Directors that have to look at dozens or maybe hundreds of portfolios on a regular basis. And a lot of those portfolio/websites are poorly done/not very appealing/amateurish etc. That would probably be pretty mind numbing and brutal, and I would imagine they would be prone to making very quick judgements of the portfolios, when deciding to move on to the next one or not. So what do you think the immediate first impression of your site is? Also, I think having a very straight forward website without unnecessary info/pages etc. shows a certain amount of respect for the time that the viewer of your site is spending (as well as a professional understanding of what is important or relevant or not on your part). Things like your "Updates" section. I don't really see a lot of relevance there. Why would a potential employer care that on 11/20/08 you changed the background image of your site? On 10/3/08 your renders were completed and uploaded? Having words telling me that there are pictures there seems pretty redundant and unnecessary. Another thing to consider to make your presentation more straightforward would be to have your role/career goal in plain site under your name, on every page, so folks know what you do , i.e. under your name, "Environment And Prop Artist". As well as maybe contact info, or at least a link to contact you, in sight at all times. I dig your work and I hope I don't sound too harsh or critical, just my honest 2 cents. Good luck!
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    PUT CREDITS ON ALL WORK IN YOUR PORTFOLIO THAT IS NOT YOURS. Currently you have the warhammer concepts in your portfolio showing everyone those as your concepts. We of course know that they aren't yours but take the confusion out of the way by properly labeling them as such.

    - Take everything you've made for a class for AI course and throw it all away. (already said)

    - Take off school projects and Arby's off of your resume. If you have a 'lack' of job experience in your resume you can go the experience route with your resume, I had the same issues when I graduated with my resume. If you'd like take a look at mine for a non-job related type resume. Not saying mines the greatest though... but you need to sell your experience and what you can do, even without job experience.

    Good luck and good start!! It's a rough road ahead but well worth it to do something you love.
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    fattkid wrote: »
    ...
    I'm no grammar cop, but sheesh man block of text there.. paragraph man.. :D
  • Pope Adam
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    Pope Adam polycounter lvl 11
  • DudeinCA
    Dekard wrote: »
    PUT CREDITS ON ALL WORK IN YOUR PORTFOLIO THAT IS NOT YOURS. Currently you have the warhammer concepts in your portfolio showing everyone those as your concepts. We of course know that they aren't yours but take the confusion out of the way by properly labeling them as such.

    just to make sure i do it right. i do have "I used the Warhammer Online concepts for this piece and recreated each concept in 3D to create this scene." and "WarHammer Dark Elves Wall Concept" caption for the image showing the concept of the wall and "WarHammer Chaos Army Ram Concept" caption for the ram. is that enough or what more should i have? should i bold Warhammer Online?
  • Em.
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    Em. polycounter lvl 17
    I would put a line of text on the image as well, something like "Concept by EA Mythic, Warhammer Online:Age of Reckoning" or find out the name of the artist that did the concept. I bet one of the Mythic guys on here would know. Lotta good crits in here to take advantage of, good luck man.
  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    Good job making the updates.

    Your logo is clearly a rushed replacement. Stop trying to make one. Your name and contact information should be there instead. Simple, classy text will do. Honestly, you don't have your name or contact info on the main page at all. I had to search your site for find out your name.

    Super nit-picky comment: Chaos ram attacking Dark Elf keep?! They are both on the same side. This wouldn't happen.

    That doesn't really matter though. A much more important issue you need to address is learning how to create proper materials. Any monkey can google pictures and run them through crazybump. Consider posting an individual asset you want to kick ass in it's own thread, and redo it with the feedback you get. We can train you up.
  • DudeinCA
    alright thanks. ill do that with the concepts.

    ya i figured out they were on the same side after i made the models, lol, next time ill do more research.

    but ya for sure ill get working on some new stuff after i graduate and really get some great work done.
  • whats_true
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    whats_true polycounter lvl 15
    For C3, you have two different sidewalk renders. The ones that are rendered "in-game", you did not make. Those were done by Heather. Would kindly suggest you take that out mate.

    Dito with everybody else. Seriously though, uninstall crazy bump and Ninvidia filter, because that is killing your normal work mate. I would suggest you spend a few class periods in Don's class so you can learn the proper way to do SPC maps and NRM maps.
  • Jeremy Lindstrom
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    Jeremy Lindstrom polycounter lvl 18
    I wouldn't go as far as saying get rid of crazybump or the nvidia filter but learn how to create good normals with em.

    here's an awesome tut by talon;
    http://www.hull-breach.com/Talon/temp/normalMapMiniTut.jpg
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