[Portfolio] – Daniel M, Prop Artist

leidan_37

Hello Folks. I'm a relative newcomer to PC. Over the last half year or so, I've been learning Game Environment art like mad and I've come to a point where I'm getting a feeling that I could try to shoot for jobs, yet I can see that my work isn't the cream of the crop.

So I created a portfolio a ways back, and started adding things to it and I would love it everyone here could take a look at it and give me critique on;

1) The site itself,
2) The site's content,
3) Am I ready to start applying for Prop Art jobs?

I would appreciate any input, and advice that I can get.

Here's the link to my site:

www.livelightstudios.com

Orgoth02

Why do you need a job if your already a studio?

PredatorGSR

The water tower is the only thing that is vaguely interesting and has any flavor. Everything else is basically just a bland shape with a normal map.

You need to work on stuff that is actually cool and looks difficult to make. Find some concepts that make you go 'wow', and make that. Basically, everything in your portfolio is merely ok, when it needs to impress people.

Rhinokey

your stuff is not bad, but is pretty basic and not something that will turn heads. also it looks like you shed and some other objects are rendered in orthogonal views with no perspective.

MRico

I think you should show some high poly models. Is your only high poly model the light box? It's a pretty basic high poly model, though. Need some more complex models to impress people.

Also...

This is just a pet peeve of mine...

"1024

SouthpawSid

i'll second everything the first two posts said because they were both very right. Also, are all of your views of your assets in some sort of orthographic view like in max? It hurt my eyes, lol.

EDIT* just saw Rhinokeys post. so yeah, kill ortho views. :poly136:

Jeremy Lindstrom

oh and all those textures are WAAAAYYYYY to big for the assets that they are.

leidan_37

Orgoth02 wrote: »

Why do you need a job if your already a studio?

It's just a domain that I own.

Also it looks like you shed and some other objects are rendered in orthogonal views with no perspective.

Aah great, you're the second person that has mentioned my usage of orthos. I've been spending my time as a 3D generalist (hobby, I did everything except game art )of sorts where orthos are liked because they show things better than perspective. But it seems that's highly frowned upon in game art so I'd better change that I guess.

This is just a pet peeve of mine...

"1024

whats_true

Ortho screen grabs? Dude, In-Game shots or at the very least, some decent renders. You need to push everything you do, from high poly modeling to texturing. Everything is plain and uninteresting. You need to up your game before you can apply for a job mate.

leidan_37

Ortho screen grabs? Dude, In-Game shots or at the very least, some decent renders.

Firstly, these are in game, no, don't look at me like that, I do know what I'm talking about.

Secondly, i've heard it said countless times that one should never ever render anything but the HP models for a game art portfolio.

whats_true

Could have fooled me, cause you did. It doesnt say anywere on your web site that they are in game, in what game, I dont have a clue. To that, because they are shot in orthographic view, that says to me, "Oh, screen grabed from a Modeling program."
Its mostly evident in the house and Cannon dude.

I say render from modeling program cause it didnt even look like you were rendering some of your models and it surely didnt look like it was rendered in a ingame engine. Hence why I said, the very least, render it in the modeling program properly.

kdm3d

next gen gaming, yes. But still in next gen gaming we cant go "crazy" with textures. In Reach, there were a few assets that got crunched down to a 256 or 128 texture that were half the size of the player. Its really tough, but the assets themselves decide the final texture size. Are they hero objects? or ambient filler? What size will they be in the final screen?

Also, depending on what you're going for (props artist as stated) you need to get a little bit more informed about modern gaming workflow. About texture sizes, tri counts, which textures to use, etc. In blender, as a rendering software, you have unlimited texture slots, but in a game, having a seperate AO map will be one more texture that engine will have to load and draw. Thats why its almost always multiplied over the diffuse texture on the texture level.

All that being said, you have a good start. Maybe try downloading UDK (its free) and start getting your props in there. That will give you a good idea of modern gaming workflow, and make some sweet as props for your portfolio.

You've come to a good place to help you on your way, but remember, anything we say is just trying to help. Were not trying to be offensive. Part of being a game artist is the ability to take constructive crits, and apply them (or not) to your own workflow.

Good luck!

Axios

Just give the count in tris.

leidan_37

Axios wrote: »

Just give the count in tris.

Yeah but what do I do when my props have a bunch of quads in them as well? (which they do)

kdm3d

it all gets boiled down to tris in the end on export to an engine. every quad is 2 tris. So you can either triangulate you mesh to get an accurate number, or does blender give a number of tris when its not triangulated?

Axios

1 quad = 2 tris

I'm not familiar with Blender, but you can get the count in tris or at least triangulate the mesh and get the face count.

leidan_37

kdm3d, I can do either, that's not at all a problem. Problem I have is that when you triangulate the count go way up which I think means that I have less to work with in the first place.
[edit]Ok, that's something I'm confused about now. Do I actually need to triangulate the mesh? Or do I just need to give the tri count?

kdm3d

yes, it will go up. When you get down to it, its actually verts that matter in engine... but tris or polies give a good representation of that. When applying for games, though, an Art Director will know the difference between tris and quads, so if the number is higher, they will understand.

No, you dont need to triangulate the mesh. Engines typically do that on export any way. UNLESS your software would triangulate it differently on a normal map bake. Then you'll want to do it when you bake JUST to make sure.

MRico

Man, I wish I was more clear in my posts. That's why I asked which one is it? Tris or quads?

150 tris is 150 tris...150 quads is 300 tris. When modeling your low poly you want to keep an eye on tri count not quad count. This doesn't mean model in triangles. Just remember that one quad is made up of 2 triangles. You might not actually see the triangles but they're there.

You don't have to triangulate your mesh, but I think most game engines read triangles only. For example you can export a none-traingulated mesh into UDK but when you view the wireframe in UDK it's all triangles.

I don't know how blender works but in 3ds max we have the option to read how many tris, quads and verts our models have without having to do anything to them.

JonathanF

do not triangulate the mesh when presenting your piece to show off... it looks to messy. keep it in its quad format, but give the number of tris that are in it. It will need to be triangulated for in game of course later on... Thing about quads and why you want to see those rather than triangles, is that with quads we can see how well you model and if you have waisted geometry... Hard to tell with tri's all over the place.

leidan_37

That clears it up, thank you!
I'm thinking that I should be creating a scene now so that I can also sell myself as an environment artist. We'll see how that goes.