[Portfolio] Dave Lee, Level designer & generalist (new site WIP)
Hello Polycount! First off all, thank you to everyone who has posted so much helpful information on here ("Your portfolio repels jobs", "The truth about the industry", etc). I'm a long-time lurker and aspiring level designer, and the advice and work that I've seen on here has been terrific and inspiring.
I'm currently in my junior year of a graphic design 4-year degree from a liberal arts university. I decided to go ahead and major in graphic design A. Because I wanted a "back-up plan", B. The degree had a little animation/3D work involved and C. It was cheap. As of last fall, I only had $8,000 in student loans, and I'm now working full-time for the university, which is completely covering my tuition.
As part of the final project for a Photoshop class I'm taking, I've been preparing my portfolio website, and I knew it was time to come to you guys for come C&C.
Everything should be working: http://www.davelee3d.com/
It's due on Friday, so I hope to have it live (including a at least partially populated gallery) by mid-day Friday.
Regarding my portfolio, it's all over the place right now, but my ambition is to become a level designer. My position with my university is at least 3D related, although I mostly do architectural visualization, maps, etc.
I'm currently in my junior year of a graphic design 4-year degree from a liberal arts university. I decided to go ahead and major in graphic design A. Because I wanted a "back-up plan", B. The degree had a little animation/3D work involved and C. It was cheap. As of last fall, I only had $8,000 in student loans, and I'm now working full-time for the university, which is completely covering my tuition.
As part of the final project for a Photoshop class I'm taking, I've been preparing my portfolio website, and I knew it was time to come to you guys for come C&C.
Everything should be working: http://www.davelee3d.com/
It's due on Friday, so I hope to have it live (including a at least partially populated gallery) by mid-day Friday.
Regarding my portfolio, it's all over the place right now, but my ambition is to become a level designer. My position with my university is at least 3D related, although I mostly do architectural visualization, maps, etc.
Replies
I will return to the gallery page later when it got some more stuff.
Good luck!
http://www.davelee3d.com/dev/gallery.php?level=picture&id=2
and that was after 4 clicks?
The general consensus regarding the gallery so far is:
- Too many clicks
- Confusing navigation
- No content (this will be fixed as I add images)
A somewhat functioning version of the Gallery page (but still no content, only two test images) can be accessed here: http://www.davelee3d.com/gallery_noiframe.php
I'm going to look at making the gallery navigation more intuitive, and removing at least one layer of clicks (IE, you click on the thumb, you get the large image immediately). I'm also going to make the home/index page link to the gallery more clear that it's linking to the gallery, not the three images shown.
Something that I had forgotten from the "Your portfolio repels jobs" thread is watermarking my images, which I'm going to need to do before uploading them to the gallery.
Ben, I'm glad you liked the colors! It's pretty much a pull of the Derelict Studios color template, which I've always loved, so I got Phoib to send me the hex codes for the colors. Good comments on some of the extra text too, I'm going to look at cleaning it up some, thanks!
Oh, and hey there TheWinterLord, I forgot that you were lurking around here as well!
I'll post when I get more content in the gallery as well.
For anyone wanting a quick summary, skip to the bottom.
Nav:
Art on the first page, its a bread crumb, remember why they are coming to your site. Gallery > Resume > Contact. A site should be a means to an end, and never obtrusive or cumbersome. You have a bit of both mixed in =/
[rambling about bread crumbs]
Your bread crumbs should be like a crack rock the size of your head. They should drive people to want to see more and should be freely given. If you spill the whole cart of bread crumbs on the first page, they'll love it. As they feverishly click on your art to get their next fix they find themselves 2min in and having devoured your whole site and still hungry for more. It ends in them being so impressed that they skip your resume, they skip calling and knock on your door. As you answer they toss a black hood over your head and all you hear is the squealing of a vans tires as you're whisked away to work as a rockstar at some amazing company. That my-friend, is the power of bread crumbs when done right.
[/rambling about bread crumbs]
Video(s):
- When you make your demo reel, keep it short and simple. Avoid blank title screens and over the top music. Remember to keep it short and simple with lots of bread crumbs.
- Don't put powdered cleanser in their cocaine, they'll hate you for it...
Unless 5min is a requirement you need to cut that down. Probably 1-2min-ish? Granted these are supplemental to your demo reel so a little extra time can be taken but consider that...
- Typically you have about 20-30 seconds to sell the next 15-30 seconds. If its too long they might skip around and miss some really awesome nuggets, like the house exploding or the heli's raining fire down on the camera. It's not that screeners have ADD, its that their time is limited, they have a lot of links to click, music they might not like, to listen to, you have a finite amount of time to grab their attention.
http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/replay/20080709carlos/carlos1.html
This webinar about animation demo reels also applies pretty heavily to game demo reels too.
(Warning: he rambles worse then me sometimes...)
- Game trailer, music video or showcasing what you did?
While impressive it doesn't showcase what you did or how you did it. Overhead views, paths, choke points, scripting of events, AI, custom content. All in laymen terms for people not familiar with the game.
- While I personally liked your music selection, I found myself starting to drift and pay attention to the musics lyrics about the 3rd time a helicopter was shot down, (ok I get it you hate heli's heh). Probably go with something a bit quieter, sometimes letting the game sound through can help.
So quick recap:
- More bread crumbs, more often in a shorter amount of time.
- They come to see your work not read text and figure out how to get to your work.
- Make the nav as simple and fast as possible.
[Edit] I too love bread crumbs
My site is now live, including the gallery! Check it out at http://www.davelee3d.com/
Here are the changes that I was able to make yesterday:
- Fixed the gallery and added a good bit of content (more to come still)
- Added "Visit the gallery" text to the image on the Home page so it's clear you're going to the gallery, not those thumbnails
- Cleaned up and moved text around on the Home page, and added a highlighted "mission statement"
- Added "World in Conflict was created by Ubisoft Massive. Images and video used with permission." to the Demo Reel page, which I meant to add earlier. Gotta give credit where credit is due!
- Added favicon
- Various bug fixes & tweaks
I'm still trying to figure out how to make the gallery more navigable without making it cluttered.
Take a look, and let me know what you think! I'm also planning on uploading more content to the gallery this weekend and next week.
Oh sweet, much better now! Paradise is awesome btw, played it lots hehe!
Maybe get rid of the collections tab and go staight into your 3d design tab where you put 2d design tab renamed as ''other'' or something appropiate.
So when someone visits your site and click on ''gallery'' they are directed to http://www.davelee3d.com/gallery.php?level=collection&id=3
Its just a suggestion, maybe you have plans to put up alot of other kinds of stuff there also, then its not that viable imo.
"
Command & Conquer Generals SDK
Command & Conquer Generals Worldbuilder
Command & Conquer 3 Worldbuilder
"
Just say Custom content for Command and Conquer and World in Conflict.
Here's an example of a great gallery: http://www.neilblevins.com/artgallery/artgallery_thumbnails_by_category.html
Here's how it's looking so far. Remember, it's not technically live yet, so if you click off of the page the "downloads" option will disappear from the navigation and you'll have to use your back button to get back to it. Not all of the links are working yet either.
http://davelee3d.com/downloads.html
Does anyone know of a good "click counter" (maybe PHP based?) so I can keep track of the number of times an asset is downloaded?
I still need to go back and clean up my resume as well.
Here is a suggestion though...
You could really use a short explanation of what you have done in the given images.
Currently its a little confusing just looking at the images.
Here's a couple of sites of my buddies that I'd recommend looking at for professional level designers. Not saying copy them, but it's worth taking a look and seeing what lands you jobs.
www.vargodesign.com/
www.madmassey.com/
Key points about their sites:
They describes their projects. How long they spent, what tools they used, what they contributed to it, etc.
Also, include any documentation you've done for your levels. Designers love them some documentation.
Good luck
I'm trying to figure out the best way to add some sort of caption to my images - I agree 100% that at least some of them need them badly. The only way to add in a caption below the images is to re-introduce that mid-size image (so the gallery would go Thumbnail > Mid-size image with caption > Full image in new tab), and that would add in an extra click, so I don't think it's a good idea. I'm looking to see if Plogger (the PHP gallery system I use) has any mods that will let me add descriptions. There is actually a description when you hover over a thumbnail (though they're all the same atm). If I put a line of text somewhere on the gallery page mentioning this, do you think it would be enough?
@Slybones
Really great links there, I hadn't even thought of doing break-downs! I spent a ton of time planning the gameplay for Paradise especially. I wonder if a separate page for level breakdowns would be a good idea, or some kind of video breakdown?
I'm still trying to walk the line between having a game art portfolio and a graphic design portfolio, as I need to have both for now. I have made some changes to help separate the content - I've tweaked a bunch 'o stuff:
My usability question is this: Does having the 4 "Recent work" images on the main page link to the gallery rather than larger versions of each image annoy you?
http://www.davelee3d.com/