Joe's Recent Work

JoeCyriac

These are some pieces I worked on this year. 3 characters and 1 small set. The set is a Pixar tribute. The game character was done for a recent 3DTotal challenge. Sorry about all the writing on the images, I had to forward them to some recruiters and I used the same images.

Comments and critiques are very welcome. I'm hoping for reviews especially on the characters, that's where I'd like to focus. Thanks in advance.

Ben Apuna

I'm not usually one to critique characters, not my area of expertise...

The one thing that stands out the most to me is the lack of specular variation on your characters especially the Superman and Gorefang. All of the materials seem to read the same or very similar. I think you need to take another pass at your specular and gloss maps in order to help define the materials that things are made of a bit better.

One minor thing that also stands out to me is that the texture on Gorefang's pedestal reads as low resolution and stretched compared to the texture of the character himself. I think you should try to match the pixel density of the two.

Just a suggestion, if you're looking to get into the game industry it might help to get these characters and scene into an engine like UDK, Cryengine, or Marmoset. If they are rendered in an engine then you should indicate it on your images.

I hope that helps.

conte

that orc is friggin cool, mate!

Saman

You should change the spec map as Ben Apuna suggested. I also suggest adding an ambient occlusion map to your diffuse map.

Kewop Decam

Why is the stand's pixel density so much lower compared to your character in the last piece?

Will Faucher

Characters look good. But as suggested above, they need an AO map. It will definitely help bring out those details. Also, I think that Uruk-Hai needs hair. I've never seen a bald one before! But maybe that was your intention.

JoeCyriac

Ben Apuna, Goraaz: Thanks for the crit. I've changed the goblin's spec map as you suggested, and added a subtle AO in the diffuse. I still don't think there's enough variation, but it doesn't seem to change much even when I make the map high contrast. I've attached the new images as well as the diffuse and specular maps. Also forgot to mention I used the awesome Marmoset engine for the goblin, sorry for not giving credit where it was due. Learning UDK now.

conte: Thanks! You've got some great work in your portfolio, I especially like your sketches.

Kewop Decam: It was done for a contest at 3D Total, and the pedestal has a smaller map than the model, I think that was in the rules. I'll fix that as well.

Prophecies: Heh, The orc started out as a berserker, with a metal mask. They were the bald ones in the 2nd movie. I removed the mask, kept the bald.

Critiques welcome. Also would like to ask what the time frame should be to finish a next gen character. How long should you take to make a character on your own, fully textured with 12-15K poly count, like something in Mass Effect 2?

chrisradsby

Got some nice work there man, the timeframe of a nextgen character depends on the artist and if the artist got some clear guidelines to follow like concept etc. I usually finish my characters in a month, well my latest ones.

Ben Apuna

It's cool, I meant mentioning that you used an engine not to "give credit" so much as to "take credit". To show that you made an effort to display your work in a game engine rather than a software renderer like mental ray or vray.

About the specular, yeah sadly Marmoset doesn't support a separate gloss map. I think it's the similar width and brightness of the specular highlights that is bringing down the quality just a bit.

One trick you can do is split the geometry between different material types. Then when you bring the model back into Marmoset each "chunk" can have it's own material. Then you can alter the specular intensity, specular sharpness, and fresnel exponent for each individual chunk/material combination. Unfortunately this only works where you can actually split the mesh.

You've got some good work here keep it up

odium

Ahhh reason its looking poor is that your spec map isnt even a spec map... its a greyscale diffuse map.

Your spec map should contain colour for a start. It will help sell the different materials a hell of a lot more. But also it wouldn't look totally different. Lets tkae your Gorefang model as an example... Look at the markings on his skin. Its all flesh, yet your spec map will create less of an effect on the darker parts of the diffuse, which is wrong... Why would it be any different?

At the moment the models are great and everything is fantastic, but the spec maps are really letting everything down. Superman could be pushed so much further if you put a little time into how spec maps are created and didnt just greyscale your diffuse.

BradMyers82

I agree with Odium. Your spec is indeed wrong.
You have really great work though, I think the main thing you need to work on is your texturing skills. You seem to have very good rendering skills, but your texturing is not up to your rendering level. This means that a lot of your work while it looks great, doesn't look quite right. And that's because specular, and AO is not being handled properly. I would also suggest you get a hold of Marmoset Toolbag or any game engine for that matter and start making your renders real-time. This will give you a better idea how to handle game art, and will give you a chance to really get those texture skills up.
keep up the good work!

JoeCyriac

chrisradsby, Ben Apuna: Thanks for the information. Yeah I played with the specular intensities and Fresnel values in Marmoset, but I gotta fix the specular map, clearly. Found a bunch of UDK tutorials, learning that now.

odium, BradMyers82: Thanks for the solid review and all the crits. The spec here isn't just a grayscale diffuse, but I understand there's a lot more to be done. I'll keep working, the intention's to be a freelance character artist, so I'll be churning work out pretty regularly.