Critique my failed art test

Junkie_XL

Good luck to other PC'ers who were contacted randomly. Maybe this thread will help you out.

The game I could've been working on looked really interesting but it wasn't meant to be. Got the word back that they're going to pass for now. I won't name the company (Not even sure if I'm allowed to post this. If you're reading this and you're apart of said company I'll remove if requested.)

So I had to demonstrate the works...high poly, low poly, zbrush, a little bit of basic anatomy by making an arm, diffuse/spec/normal on the weapon done in 512x512 or 1024x256 and keep it under 2k tris all done in one week.

Anywho this was the concept provided...

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This is what I ended up submitting...

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Off the top of my head I was thinking maybe I should've mirrored the weapon to maximize UV space. And then the metals I could've put more time into.

As for the arm, maybe some skin striations/wrinkles, etc. That was secondary in the test and they didn't seem to imply they were looking for too much detail.

Anywho let me know what you guys think... Thanks.

edit: btw the marmoset shots were rendered with 2048x512, not the smaller 1024x256.

Fang

Too bad you didn't get the gig. That weapon is VERY badass though!

ZacD

Turn down the normals and AO on the diffuse!

Josh_Singh

Well, I think your art test is looking pretty cool. But keep in mind It's not all about the art test. They look at your experience as well, also they take into account how you will fit into the team. Quite honestly the reason you got passed might have been somebody with more experience than you and same skill level applied as well. I have been in candidate screenings where the talent was so similar we started weighing in on everything, questions come up like "Who do you think wants to work here more" or "Who would you rather work with". I don' t know if any of this stuff applies to you, but it's how people think when hiring a new artist, from my experience anyway,
Nice Work by the way Keep on it!

DarthNater

Well, here is what I thought of right when I looked through everything (this is just first thing off the cuff). It looks like you didn't create the low poly yourself (You used an optimizer of some sort?) I'm sure the company would want to see you actually create the low poly yourself.

It also feels like there's a lot of left over space on your texture sheets.

Target_Renegade

Personally, I think its an awesome model. The arm look great also. The only thing I can think of is the use of the UVs and maybe they were looking for reuse in the textures, instead of 1 map. Thats the only constructive thing I can say.

bounchfx

Looks great dude. the only things I could maybe possibly point out is that the tree part of it looks a tad shiny, and yeah, the UV's, but I dunno. Good practice/portfolio piece anyhow. hope you don't get in trouble for posting this.

mLink

Definitely great, but it looks higher poly than it needed to be.
It also looks like you used an automated mesh optomizer on it, maybe not what they were looking for.
Uvs could have been mirrored and more minor details put into the texture:
-mold where the branches come over the metal
-some wear & tear on the metal handle, add some rust, dirt from someone holding it, etc.
-the "grooves for directing poison" look more like vines on yours. Maybe add a bit of overspill next to the grooves to make it look like some sort of liquid has actually gone through there

Try not to beat yourself up over too much though, it looks awesome

ae.

Hey Junkie,

Don't feel too bad about not getting the gig, I recently got passed up for a position also, it was due to my experience level or lack there of not having worked on any major projects except Mass Effect 2 as QA, I'm sure I was competing against people with more than 2-3 titles under there belt.

A great thing to learn about these experiences is that people are interested in your work seeing as how they contacted you, if they weren't they would have never contacted you in the first place. All you have to do now is keep your head high and pump out some amazing art and maybe down the line they might contact you again.

That is what im doing and i recommend the same, You obviously have skill lets see if you have the commitment, pump out more awesome pieces and i am sure you'll get a lot more job offers!

Cheers,

Arman

Jet_Pilot

Hey man, I know how it feels to work on something all week when not operating at 100%. It sucks!

But about your model, I cant see any issues. Everything seems pretty high quality and done RIGHT. They probably decided to hire one of the teams friends or something like that since everyone is hurting for a job. I would try and contact them and see if you can get a review from the Art Director or who ever is making the decisions over there, and just keep moving forward!
Good luck

Jet_Pilot

PS. I would photoshop out the Zbrush circles. My eye always goes to them first. -10 pts.

Wells

thing that jumps out at me,
is wondering why you didn't play with the uvs, straighten them out so the lines are vertical on the grip to help the aliasing, etc.

the shape of the actual blade on the hi-poly looks a bit odd, a bit pillowy where it suddenly becomes the blade edge...

overall, though, a good looking piece.

ThatDon

Sorry to hear you didn't get the gig man, I dig your test!

MoP

Yep the end result looks very cool. I would definitely have aligned those UVs though, it would take almost no effort and look much neater, also probably give you some extra space to play with if needed.

low odor

Yeah..I dig it...doubt it was the test..it looks pretty faithful to the concept..keep the faith

Rojo

It looks nice, you did well. Sometimes shit doesn't work out for reasons out of your control.

PixelGoat

I think it looks frikkin badass!

Ro-Sham-Bo

I think it looks really solid, but once again, the low poly looks like you used a optimizer or something and that to me is a big turn off and maybe to the company that looked at it, But if your making shit of this quality it shouldn't be to hard for you to find work somewhere else.

MoP

I dunno, Ro-Sham-Bo, that lowpoly looks good to me.

NyneDown

You may not have gotten the job, but this is far from being a fail. It's great man, you should be proud.

adam

The lowpoly looks fine. I was going to post pretty well the same thing Josh had written. I really doubt it was the results of your art test that had them turn you down, and instead its for one of the reasons Josh posted about.

Keep at it!

Rhinokey

while i agree the low poly looks fine it also may not be what the company expected or would like to have seen, and as a whole i would say it is the weakest part of a real nice piece, so if it was anything to do with the art test i would vote the low poly.

also your use of uv space couldhave been used a lot better especialy the fact that its mapped non mirrored but the actual texture of the blade seems to be near exactly the same on both sides, if you have to map it unique, then make the texture different on both sides

carlo_c

I like the low poly, it looks like you used an optimizer (if you did) where you needed to with all those organic branch elements. You might as well save time if they didn't specifically say not to use any sort of mesh optimizer and the result is the same.

Being nitpicky, the material definition between the wood and the metal blade could have been more distinctive. Maybe a gloss map would have been been good for it.

I like it all though, especially the arm sculpt. Sorry you didn't land the job, I know what that feels like. Good luck with future opportunities, hopefully there will be many

rasmus

I'd second what Josh Singh said - there's nothing really wrong with your work, though I'd straighten those UV's next time.

woogity

hey man srry to hear about the outcome of this. the blade is very bad ass, id say the blade does have a bit of a pillowy form to it, but being that that is the only thing that doesn't look right id say experience is the big issue too. the arm is a bit soft, to me, esp compared to the blade, but if as you say its secondary id still stick with experience. great work tho, and i wish you luck in your job hunt!


-Woog

pliang

I'd say it may be because they had someone else who they knew well vying for the same job.
Having skills and experience is great and all but it's also about who you know.

Onto the art test.

Looks far from failure, but the normals for the blade seems over done, I thought it was either rock or hard plastic. The spec may need a little tuning as well.

The grip itself could use a little variation in the metal color as well.

Nizza_waaarg

gotta second what zacD and pliang said, little lighter on the normals (and aocc mebbe) so things can read a little easier visually and it'd be awsome... tho in all honesty it already looks badass and gotta say it seems very doubtful they passed on you coz you messed up the test or anything.

As much as it sucks, does seem like you have to know people, and seems most likely that someone else prolly knew someone there already... or they made the most badass polearm thing ever :P (maybe both?)

Anyway, cool stuff man. Got some practice out of it at least?

crazyfingers

It looks great man, i could nit pick a few things, weapons a little too plasticy. Arm could use more hyper detail. But more importantly you just gotta buck up dude. For one no one wants to hire someone moping around, but more importantly you gotta just roll with it dude , not the end of the world. Shrug it off, give it a bit of time, but come back for more. Your works definitely up there! Just keep pushin' it.

Think of it this way. All those dudes getting hired, they're going to get complacent sittin' on their butts getting paid, they wont be pushin' as hard to get better... Ok that's a flat out lie, but hey, you gotta come up with some kind of wild thoughts to get back in it! Seriously though your art's good, good enough to get you a job if you're at the right place in the right time, just gotta hang in there and keep up the arts.

System

In the reference, the blade centre above the cutting edge has little to no detail of dammage/bump whereas the cutting edge has quite alot more dammage than yours... some people are picky and or have favourites as said but it makes me wonder how different people will want different things with regard to the amount of restrictiveness and improvisation allowed in following a reference like this. Anyway, it's an awesome model, sorry you weren't picked out for the job but don't be down because you have the skills man

natetheartist

It looks badass to me dude.

The only thing that i can think of is the presentation....?

Maybe they wanted a clean model sheet instead of a bunch of screen-shots?
Most of your images are either cut off, or oddly framed. And the lighting in marmoset was a little less than amazing, but like I said, I wouldn't think that stuff should matter toooo much?

Raymond Arnold

One thing that I wouldn't have thought of until today (I was talking today with a friend who got into the industry already who said this has happened to him a few times) is if a company asks for an art test that is overly specific, they sometimes are actually scamming you, having you do work for free which they then go and use without having ever paid you (whether this is legal depends on what contract you might have signed). I don't know whether you have any reason to assume that was the case here, but that blade looks like a pretty specific asset to ask for in an art test, so it's a possibility. (You mentioned you got contacted randomly, which also is kinda in line with the theory)

BradMyers82

Raymond Arnold: This is very true, but any reputable company would not do this imo, at least not to risk getting caught and legality issues etc.
Anyways, this definitely isn't the case here, there are a bunch of us that have done this exact test. It's legit

Raymond Arnold

Ah. 'kay then. It was hard to tell due to the deliberate vagueness of the original post.

EggE

i wish companies could tell you why you werent hired, ( i know they cant do that for EVERYONE) but this looks like a good prop.

soulstice

Also wanted to chime and say great work, keep trucking! I can't personally see anything wrong with it. I agree with what Josh had to say, probably other factors.

Hazardous

Josh_Singh wrote: »

Well, I think your art test is looking pretty cool. But keep in mind It's not all about the art test. They look at your experience as well, also they take into account how you will fit into the team. Quite honestly the reason you got passed might have been somebody with more experience than you and same skill level applied as well. I have been in candidate screenings where the talent was so similar we started weighing in on everything, questions come up like "Who do you think wants to work here more" or "Who would you rather work with". I don' t know if any of this stuff applies to you, but it's how people think when hiring a new artist, from my experience anyway,
Nice Work by the way Keep on it!

+1 to this. Several first hand experiences just like it.

Junkie_XL

hey how'd this get bumped? I was hoping to let this die for a little while longer.

Anywho **smile** Thanks for all the compliments guys. I really appreciate it. Big confidence booster for me.

The art director went out of his way to talk to me...something a lot of other studios don't do. I'll refrain from mentioning anything further at this time as to not spoil the test for others who might be still be taking it. Once somebody is decided on I'll mention more and maybe others like Brad can post their take on the test in here.

I just wanted to mention they are a great group of people (I can say who it is now, Icarus Studios working on the Fallen Earth MMO) so it's nothing like what you mentioned Raymond. Very nice gents over there. Just wanted to clear that up.

SHEPEIRO

yeah i would say the UVs are your biggest issue, if you had split the metal handle section off and straightened-it-up/re-arranged it would be so much sharper as most others have said

also the amount of directional lighting your baking in could be the issue, this really depends on engine and style choice, but it could be that you added too much black from your AO shadows to the diffuse ( i preffer a little bit of darkening and quite a bit of saturation or dirt), and i dont see the need for adding directionality to it ( half the time it doubles the lighting on the model, half the time it fights against the RTL).

but it looks ace


p.s i would have left off the heavy scratching on the sides of the blade, its not there in the concept and the flat surfaces would have made a nice counterpoint to all the detail

Wahlgren

EDIT: Oh you did do the test for that studio. I didn't read your last post. I'll let the post stay as it was written anyway.

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Your work is good. Got no crits really.

I wonder about the concept though. It says fallen earth down in the corner. If you did the work for that studio then I think the case might be that you're to good for them or your artistic style doesn't mix well with them.

uneditablepoly

It's definitely a good job but I agree that the blade looks too "pillowy." In the concept it's pretty straight-edged.

Mark Dygert

rasmus wrote: »

I'd second what Josh Singh said - there's nothing really wrong with your work, though I'd straighten those UV's next time.

Yep, looks great, awesome sculpting! I think the unwrap is what did you in. You could probably do it in half the space and capture a bit more detail by straightening out the UV's so the pixels are in straight rows.

Also some of the waves around the rivets should be minimized and cleaned up. It's understandable but totally fixable. Sometimes your bake is a starting point not always the final result.

sprunghunt

It's a cool looking weapon.

Looking at the screenshots of the game it might just be that your weapon is too high poly? If that's the polycount they asked for then that's ok but the screenshots seem to indicate something a lot lower poly.

And the first thing I thought is that the UV layout seems to have a lot of empty space. Mirroring the UVs, as others have suggested, would fix that.

pixeldamage

Jet_Pilot wrote: »

PS. I would photoshop out the Zbrush circles. My eye always goes to them first. -10 pts.

interesting... can you explain more? left over hard edges that need smoothing from custom zbrushes?

Krynn72

pixeldamage wrote: »

interesting... can you explain more? left over hard edges that need smoothing from custom zbrushes?

Hes talking about the cursor that shows up in the zbrush screenshots.

Richard Kain

Straightening the UVs is important for a model like this. For more standardized models like weapons, you usually don't "bend" your UV map like that. Your UV map is oriented diagonally. That's a big no-no for large-volume modeling. Take a look at the UV maps commonly used in most MMOs. They always make sure that the UV maps are squared off as much as possible, and composed of nice, straight lines. This makes them much easier to paint for. I'll second the mirrored UVs as well. Given that there doesn't seem to be any variation in the texture from one side to the other, mirrored UVs are called for. I know this makes normal-map generation trickier, but I also know there are ways to handle that these days.

Overall, I think your high-poly interpretation is fantastic, and your UV diffuse painting looks lovely. No real complaints there. The optimization for the low-poly could have been handled better, but that goes hand-in-hand with optimizing the UV map.

DrunkShaman

Awsome weapon, well since you got most of the guide from experienced polycounters and I havent stepped in to the Game Development realm entirely. I'd just say what everyone else is saying. Your weapon looks really nice, straighten your UVs.

^.^

jakelear

I know this is from a little while ago but I missed it and also wanted to chime in and say that I think it looks great. I think the low poly model translates the high poly detail excellently. Don't lose confidence, you did an awesome job with this!

Fuse

Good work

I would be careful about posting their private concept work in public.

You also indirectly indicated which company/project you did the arttest for

Firebert

Fuse,
I know there is good amount of feedback to sift through on this thread, and I'm not calling you out, this is for anyone that doesn't really know the full history here as this goes back almost two months now.

I believe Junkie received permission to disclose who the company was as well as post their private concept work. In his original post back in December, he posted the concept art without the logo, and also commented that he was not going to mention who the art test was for. At that point, Junkie also indicated that he would remove all of the info and images if the company asked him to.

He updated his original post with their concept work including the company/game logo in January and responded with additional info when the thread was bumped a couple weeks later (see here).

Just so people don't think Junkie is totally out of line, he did take due caution in not disclosing any key information without their permission and the intent of removing it if he was asked to.

Again, no offense, this thread goes back a ways with a few edits here and there.

Junkie, how's those new HP models coming yo!?!

beartraps

This is an awesome piece of work. As carlo c said, the metal could have used a bit of tweaking, maybe a gloss map or a cube map if it was allowed. Its a bit depressing to see that this didn't land you the gig. I'm sure you'll get some work elsewhere, your work is really good.

Leech

Dude, Fallen Earth is a garbage game.

You dodged the bullet on this one, who knows why they passed, maybe they ran out of money.