[ Portfolio ] - Brendan Llave, Environment Artist (Almost)

Spectaculese

http://spectaculese.blogspot.com/

Hey everyone, first time poster.

I just finished up my first quarter of my senior project class at the Art Institute of California at San Diego and figured before I jumped into the second installment of the class (and polish up a website) I'd run what I have so far through the wringers.









Any feedback on my work would be incredibly helpful including any advice on my page layouts.

BradMyers82

Hey, I really like your work here. I see that you have a blog style going, and your kind of posting your WIP as you go but it would be nice to have some final organized presentation sheets at the end.

By this I mean, your showing all your stuff, but I have to kind of dig through it all to really get the gist of how this was all made. So It would be better IMO to have a final sheet showing for example: the final untextured wireframe, and the final composition.
Also, I don't see a polycount anywhere, which is a really important factor to me at least.

So, all in all; you have some really nice work here, I would just tweak how you present it. If you want some more specific examples, I personally like the way Dominance War has its competitors setup presentation sheets. Even though DW is for characters, you could use the same setup for environments as well. Check it out here: http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/events/3/team4/preview_finals_1_5319.html
(P.S. you might have to be signed in to see the whole presentation sheet pages)

Spectaculese

BradMyers82 wrote: »

So, all in all; you have some really nice work here, I would just tweak how you present it. If you want some more specific examples, I personally like the way Dominance War has its competitors setup presentation sheets. Even though DW is for characters, you could use the same setup for environments as well. Check it out here: http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/events/3/team4/preview_finals_1_5319.html
(P.S. you might have to be signed in to see the whole presentation sheet pages)

Thanks for your feedback. After looking at the dominance war stuff and the timely Unearthly Challenge stuff I understand what you mean by showing more information and thought process in my sheets.



Is a page like this sufficient for showing all the information necessary if I add a triangle count?

WOLO

try this:

Spectaculese

Would it be a good idea to get rid of the whole border thing on all my pages to maximize space?

Ott

It would be a better idea to improve the lighting, get rid of the useless blue square you have in there, do more with your spec map than clicking desaturate and calling it a day, and showing all of the actual textures that comprise this scene. You clearly have more..so what exactly are you showing us with those 3 maps on the side?

Your triangle counts will have no relevance if you don't address some of the underlining issues with your overall workflow and presentation.

I would focus more on high poly workflow with your normals and improving your specular work if you expect to be competitive when you are done.

Whose teaching senior project over there anyhow?

PixelMasher

your work looks pretty cool man. The main thing I can see from looking at your construction shots is that your normal maps dont seem to have much information in them, it looks really flat and almost entirely blue.

Spectaculese

Ott wrote: »

I would focus more on high poly workflow with your normals and improving your specular work if you expect to be competitive when you are done.

Whose teaching senior project over there anyhow?

Asa Enochs teaches the first session with Lynn Van Dall teaching the second session. What kind of direction should I be going with my spec maps to keep my work up to par with industry standards? I've seen a bit done with colored spec maps is this a good indication of what I should be striving for?

Also should I be including alpha cards I've used as grunge in these pages?

PixelMasher wrote: »

your work looks pretty cool man. The main thing I can see from looking at your construction shots is that your normal maps dont seem to have much information in them, it looks really flat and almost entirely blue.

Oversight! They definitely mean more to me than anyone else whose looking at them, I'll definitely remedy that.

Reverenddevil

I can see the potential in the scenes but like Ott said you spec does not appear to be doing anything. Also, what is that big empty space on the top right on your spec and diffuse? When it comes to spec you can use a color one, just make sure you understand what colors are used for different types of materials.

I would also use some texture in your specs with PS brushes to give more of a wear to the shininess in your spec or the opposite. Remeber in your spec, you are using it to really define your materials. The shiniest stuff being the whitest and the dull stuff like wood, rubber etc almost black. As it looks to me rught now your spec looks extremely monotone.

Also your normals are doign nothing for your scene. The blue map that appears to be a normal is not reading and I dont understand what is being done with it. Use more HP geo and photos for the normal detail/noise.