Demo Reel 2009 - Environment artist

rsharma

Hey guys, I've been visiting this site for a while now and I thought that it was time and I posted something. I recently graduated and finished my demo reel. I would really appreciate some feedback.
www.rohitsharma.ca
A little preview:

Seaseme

So was the first scene rendered in a 3d package?

Swizzle

That first image reminds me of levels from Insurgency, the HL2 mod.

whats_true

And environment, and a car.

Um...what does a car have to do with environment art if its not placed anywhere but a grey room? I think you need more work dude.

glib

The first piece is definitely stronger than the car, but it's lacking in the gallery. Texture flats, wireframe shots, and individual asset shots would be good.

In terms of the reel itself, I know schools emphasize video, but I'd focus mostly on the stills. Video just takes too long to render, and doesn't show off artistic skill any better than good still shots do. On the video though, the end of the first shot takes a very strange move at the end and then comes to a jarring stop. I would being your crossfade earlier so we never actually see the end of the shot. In terms of your gallery I would also suggest ditching the simpleviewer flash stuff. I can't save your images, and it puts everything in one big pile instead of separated by project.

BradMyers82

Your work looks really good, especially for a recent grad. The main issue I have with the site is that you don't include any wireframes, texture sheets, polycounts etc. on your images. I can see it briefly in your video; but many people aren't interested in seeing videos as its much faster to see images. I also think if you added one more piece, possibly a breakdown of your scene or a new project all together; it would be helpful. It's good to just show your very best work, but because you break it down into 2 groups I just wish there was more.
Lastly as Seaseme mentioned, it appears to be rendered in a 3d package. If this is the case, I think it would be better to at least show your environments in a game engine of some sort. Again, great work, and good luck!

rsharma

Thanks for the comments.
Seaseme: I used Maya for everything.
whats_true: I consider myself an environment and prop modeler but I also enjoy modeling vehicles. I was planning on having the car in a separate environment but I didn't have enough time to do so.
glib: Those are some very good ideas, I will add them in soon. I only used simple viewer because it was the easiest way to set up a gallery.
BradMyers82: I am currently working on another scene that I will add to my site. And I will be adding more stills. I would like to show my stuff in a game engine but I don't know how to do that.

Gannon

looks pretty sweet, reminds me of Cod4. The car goes hand in hand with environments in the sense of hard surface modeling, so I can see how it's still in the same field.

vj_box

Sharma,the middle east is certainly looking good and shows a lot of potential for a game environment.I would recommend you to go for a more stronger lighting for this level,as i am sure you know that the middle east is scorching all the time.I believe you have a tried an evening/early morning setup,but still some areas are getting a bit dark or greyed out.
COD4 is prefect reference for you when it comes to the middle east.Take a look at some of their levels like strike,backlot and a few single player levels.The amount of detail they have put in to these levels is some thing great and over all,lighting helps COD4 in gettting that kick ass look.
Since you are purely rendering this scene,you can take more advantage of some advance lighting rigs and setups to get that feel for it.
You can even try and shell out this level in any game engine editors like Unreal-ed or even the radiant for COD4,infact i would recommend the radiant for you.I was also playing with that for a while and its pretty easy to get a hang of things in there.
Good work on these.

Snight

rsharma wrote: »

I would like to show my stuff in a game engine but I don't know how to do that.

Horrible excuse. Teach yourself, there are plenty of tutorials on the internets to help you out.

mikezoo

dang man, that is one sick environment. I think Vj is along the right path. You could do more with the lighting. It looks good, but as always, probably could be better. to me the sky doesn't match the scene. Grey clouds? I don't know. Better than I can do though!

Are those low poly assets or model assests in maya? If you had these in a game engine, it would be the icing on the cake.

Shogun3d

rsharma wrote: »

I would like to show my stuff in a game engine but I don't know how to do that.

You've got to do this and use in game shots for your portfolio, you are only severely limiting yourself, its at most times stronger to show in game assets than renders simply because they are real time and what players would see.

rsharma

Thanks for the comments guys.
mikezoo:Those are low poly assets.
Vj, kaburan and Snight: I will get my environment in a game engine soon.