(Portfolio) Marquis Houghton Environment Artist

marq4porsche

Hello all, I am going to graduate soon and I just recently got my site together. I am looking for crits on my site as well as my work. I am putting together the breakdown information for each project so I know that needs to be worked on. All crits are welcome and I am looking forward to your feedback.

http://www.marquishoughton.com/

vofff

So far your site the navigation is clean, here comes the crits: Put more description details of what these are for, for example WF,UDK,Polycount,use In-game,Cinematic, Textures etc
right now I am looking at is only pictures. Describe your work more in text it brings up more clearly your work. There are 5 scenes that is too dark, I suggest you to light up your scenes a bit more and If i were you I would delete the last work "veg" Or maybe put into a random scene that would fit in if you dont want to waste it.
Anyway I hope it helps for you and work more with your scenes.

Dismembered

You could short video clips going around your models in a demo reel to help show off your models a bit better. You could also add texture sheets and wire frames of more of your models to show off you topo skills.

Mazvix

I disagree with you vofff about the lighting. I like your lighting on your scenes except the Mansion- that is dark, add intense moonlight mixed in the subtle candle lights to give the scene a darker mood like a horror mansion for example with spider webs and such.

As for the china town, from far the colors are yummy but when you get close those lanterns are really saturated, and being so close to one another doesn't help it.

For birds of paradise I suggest add spec/normals with a nice 2 point light setup.

Good luck!

marq4porsche

Thank you guys, I'll work on the brightness especially on the mansion scene, I need to rework the lighting on that one.

Another question. Should I section off my portfolio into different projects or is having everything on one page good? I think that if I make them separate projects than It's easier to organize and have different layouts and information.

cholden

You may want to watermark your images with your name, email or web adress in the corner so if anyone saves your images they can track you back. This is pretty common as I'm sure you have an inspiration folder of other peoples work.

Site seems good. Consider adding something to your site to be more iconic, like a logo or defining piece. I find that from a technical stand your site has no problems, but it is very plain and forgettable. Sometimes making your main piece a larger centerpiece or setting it as the background can do the trick. It's not a have to do thing, but can give you an edge in a stack of needles.

Stronin

Hey, glad to see you posted up your portfolio site Marquis <This is Matt Paris>

Awesome to see your work up online

I agree with what's already been said regarding putting more information. I would think Daniel had drilled listing poly counts into your head

Posting up your texture/spec/normal maps would definitely help, as it can be a good way to show your painting quality/UVmap optimization as well as your experience baking normals.

PredatorGSR

Your flower texture seems to have very inconsistent texel density. That purple section takes up almost half of the texture, but is only used on a tiny flower.

marq4porsche

Thanks Matt, Trust me, I'm working on the Info, just have to finish the semester first then I'll add that. Right now I just have to worry about finishing and graduating then I'll be on task and add it!

Predator, I know that the texel density is off and I could use a smaller amount of space for the flower part but I had the map and didn't really want to have any open space. I guess I could just extend the leaf more but I didn't really see any reason to. Maybe I'll make it smaller and add some smaller plants to that texture. Thanks for the feedback.

kanga

Folio site is clean and easy to nav. The work you are showing looks better than the start page, dunno why. The work itself looks really good.

Gerasimimumu

Hey Marquis, long time no talk (George-Gera, AAU)

In my personal experience, I would recommend that you try and run your models through an engine for lighting/shadows. UDK is free and full of tutorials. All you would really need is to watch the 'importing static meshes' and 'setting up materials' tuts, and you would be ready to go.

I spend a long time after school working on more art stuff for my site, but I really started to get hits and responses once I showed that I knew an engine and how to work in it. Most companies want to know you understand [at least in-a-nutshell] that pipeline and I believe it would benefit you and your work greatly. Mainly, the normal maps and spec maps do not show up the same in an engine as they do in maya/max. If you run at least one asset through it, you would see that those two map types need to be 2x or 3x stronger/more pronounced to get the same result in an engine. You also do not get nice (self-)shadowing in maya, like you would in an engine.

Aside from that, you have a very nice and clean site, but yes, you should def get some texture maps of your models in there. I would recommend keeping the models/wires and textures all on one image. It would require some creative texture/asset shrinking to fit it in, but it is better than having 2 separate images for a single model beauty shot.

Good luck with the hunt, hope you get in there and rock it!!

Gera

marq4porsche

Thank you Gera, I plan on spending this summer learning UDK and Unity. Unity is easier to get into but I know UDK has stronger tools overall. And yeah, I need to put my polycounts up as well as textures. It's just tedious to go through everything, but it must be done lol.

marq4porsche

Hey guys, I've updated my site with a new design and I've also started adding information to my images as well, let me know what you think. Thank you.

Neyull

I like it! I agree with the Mansion beeing a bit dark. Also the underground sewer thing could do with something to break them lines up. Overall though, You have a lot more work than I did when I finished Uni. Keep up the good work and dont stop working on new projects.

marq4porsche

Thank you, I'm in the process of fleshing out the sewer scene and that mansion is something I'm not sure about really...

Neyull

The mansion is good! it just needs a little more work. Maybe get a fire going and have some nice lighting and shadows coming from it, instead of lighting it from the corridor.

Keep the updates coming!