[Portfolio] Jett Sarrett - 3D Artist

jett12

Hi guys, I was just wondering if i could get some opinion on my portfolio.

I'm graduating from University of Texas at Dallas with a BA in Arts and Technology in December and i just wanted to see what you guys thought, keep in mind some of the stuff on there is a tad bit older, and it is only about 50% updated, I have a lot more environments & objects I need to upload (i want to do environment art).

Thanks in advance!

http://www.jettfolio.com/portfolio.html

low odor

Texture work all looks pretty unfinished. There seemed to be some stretching going on in at least one of the buildings in the DM map. I would concentrate on trying to bring them up to snuff.

The Blue Dragon has some potential..but its like you stopped with the texture. The membrane on the wings look like it is slapped on. Getting some refrence ( bat, dragon movie..etc) and examining how the skin...membrane looks, would help loads...It looks very flat as well...everything seems to have the same specular value. I think with a stronger material pass, you could have a good piece. I would also redux the rock he is sitting on...or get rid of it all together...at the moment it is detracting from the models quality.


the only other thing is that it takes me a bit to load your pics. Could be my crappy conection though

p.s : optimise that tail and show your flats

achillesian

stills are great for objects/characters/assets, but i really think a level deserves a flyby video, also the level seems extremely dark, models are cool though. Probably want a finished humanoid model, or none at all.

MetKiller Joe

Too much stuff to go through. Is all of that your best work?

Nice site, I think that if you toned it down to maybe 5-6 of your best stuff you'd be golden. My two cents. Then again, if all of that is your best, consider leaving it.

Ged

looks ok for a student portfolio ,the dragon images are a bit blurry and the textures quite simple the dmlevel looks too dark but the level assets look alright, does "ice cream carange" exist? or should that be carnage?

jett12

low odor: I see what you mean about the texture work, this class specified that we hand paint all textures from scratch and i guess I never thought twice about going back to it. Looking at the state I am now of texturing I think when I get time in the next few weeks i will go back and retexture thoe assets, as well as maybe create some higher polys from the for better normals.

What exactly do you means about "stopped textureing" on the dragon? Varied colors maybe? Im not totally sure waht you mean. This one I'd like to work on, but since im focusing on environmental art, i may have to put it off.

achillesian: I completely agree, I have a camera set-up already in Unreal3 for the fly-by, I just havent recorded it yet, any advice on good recording programs for something like this?

"Probably want a finished humanoid model, or none at all." - What are you referring to?

MetKiller Joe: I've noticed this for a while, if i had my full portolio uploaded it would go down like 3 pages, I'm going to set it up to have eacher project go to a new page I think that will solve the cludder?

Ged: Thanks for the feedback, the dragon images are not blurry to me, are they loading completely? The map is supposed to be a little dark, but i probobly need to raise the value of the environmental light for the screen grabs to get better quality. And you are right, its Carnage..lol damn typos will end me.

MetKiller Joe

Jett, I think that is a very good idea. I'd have the best piece of art as the thumbnail for each project.

PixelMasher

my biggest gripe is that a lot of your textures seem kinda blurry and have "soft" details in them. also your normal maps seem really blobby and overpowered for what you are trying to acheive. I like the train car it looks pretty cool but again the textures are letting it down.
in terms of content, your env work is definitely your strongest point, I would drop the dragon and wip characters as they give the impression of a jack of all trades, master of none. also, like 20 screens of the night scene thing is way to much to sort through, 3-5 shots should be plenty enough. if they arnt impressed by the 1st orr second then there is no way they are gonna be by shot 20.

I would also get rid of the ice cream carnage stuff, it doesnt really look too polished and the textures on the guns kinda turned me off my initial "this is pretty cool" impression of your other environment work. so your props and the night barn scene thinger are what i would keep and focus on using what you have learned to create some more awesome pieces to expand the folio.

hope this wasnt too harsh but im just giving my honest opinion of my impressions i got from it. keep at'er dude!

jett12

Not to harsh at all, I plan on getting a job after December so i need to know what people who aren't friends actually think of my work

Thanks for all the crits so far guys.

3DLee

I agree with what's been said so far. The in-game level especially was really dark. Your props look nice though, good stuff!

jett12

Ok guys I updated my site today, please give me some crits on how it is looking now!

http://www.jettfolio.com/portfolio.html

MoP

Gah, I accidentally hit Back on my mouse and it ate my long, well-worded critique

So here's a run-down, quick and dirty:

1. Highpoly sci-fi corridor stuff is turning out well. This seems to be the best stuff on there, you need to make lowpolys and textures for this stuff and do it to the best of your ability. It will eclipse most other work you show on there.

2. Are you an environment artist or a character artist? From the looks of things your environment work is stronger. I'd pick one and focus on it, right now you're in some dodgy middle ground where neither is particularly strong, and showing both just detracts from the overall impression.

3. DM-Decay in-game screens are super dark. I literally can't tell what's going on in most of them. Getting an impression of girders and barrels but that's about it. Either re-do the lighting completely so stuff can be seen properly, or get rid of those screenshots.

4. The prop shots for DM-Decay are presented much better, I can see what's going on in them. However your polygon use is all over the place. You've made giant cylinders which are twice the size of a player have about 12 sides. This is ugly and inexcusable (especially when you seem to have spent a lot more polys making the thin railings on top of the oil tanks). Spend an extra 100 triangles or something and make the cylinders cylindrical. 24 or 32 sides at least.
Right now they look like they were modelled to specs from the year 1998 (Quake 2 had cylinders like this). We're in 2009 now, sort it out.

5. Your normal-maps always look too "deep" and blobby. Exercise more restraint and look at more reference when making normal-maps, paint chips are not an inch deep. Same applies to most of the metal stuff, it's got massive indented rust and scratches which makes it all look like it's tiny models, not real-world scale stuff.
Additionally your textures seem to have very flat specular, there's no material contrast, everything is either oddly shiny or oddly matte. Again look at reference and see what parts of materials reflect more light, and which don't - use this in your specular maps to accurately describe different surfaces. Good material contrast is key to interesting environment art work.

Sorry if that's a bit short and snappy, I'm a bit annoyed that I lost the other stuff I typed

Hopefully this and the other critique in this thread will help you get your portfolio up to a level that you can really be proud of and will land you an awesome job.

jett12

To answer your question, I'm an environment artist, I just happen to have a few character works in the mix, once I get some more solid environments completed I plan on putting them off in the background somewhere.

As for DM-Decay, everyone seems to think it is to dark , so I plan on re-doing all the lighting, maybe even make it a day scene. I also planned on re texturing all the assets, but now that you mention the large 12 side tanks, thats a good point... I guess I'll re model and texture these assets now, It'll be worth it to have a nicely polished map.

I am working on my normal problems, when I made this map i wasn't using high-poly assets, just generating normals from texture work, so hopefully now that I've discovered the greatness of normal baking, and noticed how blobby my maps were, maybe i can avoid this. Also i agree about the spec maps, looking back over this map i kind of go "what was I doing?"

Thanks for your comments, these have been extremely helpful and given me lots to work on, much thanks!