Proper environment presentation?

Will Faucher

Hey,
I've been looking around for ways to properly present my environment for stills/demoreels. I know that a proper presentation can really make a massive difference to your final result.

Which is why I ask, are there any good rules of thumb to follow when presenting an environement properly? Could some of you post links to the best presented demoreels/stills regarding environment art?

Thanks in advance!

Eric Chadwick

in no particular order

http://www.envart.com/index.html
http://www.ivassago.com/index.html
http://www.marc-antoine.ca/
http://malcolm341.com/index.htm
http://www.littlelostpoly.co.uk/devblog/?p=448

Eric Chadwick

And of course...
Your Portfolio Repels Jobs

Will Faucher

Thanks for that! Helped alot!
I have another question. I am working on an environment and I can't decide which artistic style I want to follow. I looked at Robert Briscoe's work, and I love how photoreal one of his environments are. But at the same time, I don't like how blatantly photosourced his textures are.
What is more appealing to a potential employer? Stylized textures? Photoreal? Look at Adams evil genius environment for example, it is looking absolutely gorgeous but it isn't photosourced to death.

Thanks for the help! Greatly appreciated!

Joshua Stubbles

That just depends on the developer, Prophecies. Obviously if you're applying at Blizzard, you have to be able to create that style of texture. A lot of places I've applied at specify which style they are looking for (ie; realistic). If there's a particular style you like I'd say focus on that. If you have no preference, then I'd suggest having examples of both in your folio.

Eric Chadwick

Depends on the employer, unfortunately. Some like a painterly style (Blizzard), others like gritty realism (Dice).

I would recommend doing the style you're most excited by.

You can always do other styles later, to fill out your portfolio.

edit.. great minds!

Mark Dygert

I think the key is the difference between photo ref'ed and photo sourced. Even the places that want realistic textures don't want it to look like a quick photo sourced texture.

Any env artist worth their salt will take care to remove shadows and highlights from any photos he/she is using. removing the obvious lighting inconsistencies that scream photo sourced. They might even do like Adam does and heavily retouch or use it as a base to start painting. How far you take that depends on the game and the company.

I think the key in both cases starts with good ref. There are a few places that have good photo ref and of course if you can take it yourself on an overcast day, well, hot snot you get what you want.

Will Faucher

Gotcha. Thanks guys. This is for my very first piece. It's for my demoreel that I am making for school. It's the end of year project. So since this is my first full scale environment (not just props), I don't have the luxury of aiming towards one particular developer. I'm just trying to land myself a job. Any job.

Thank you so much for your help, both of you. You've helped me alot in the past, and I appreciate it!