One thing that constantly gets to me is the white background on the models rendered with AO, I would suggest toning down to more neutral shade, likewise with a black background it is bleeding into the silhouette of the models and making it really hard to read. The models seem a wee bit grainy, how much did you sample?
I also think the scale/proportion of the objects in the street scene appear off a bit, did you use a ref object to determine roughly the size of everything? Perhaps it's the sidewalk that is jumping out a bit.
Have you shown your work to anybody who could give you crits and feedback???
Because almost everything you have done like the env scene, weapons etc need a lot of work. The scene,render,textures,work flow, nrm, spec need more work. It looks flat to me when you showing the maps and for the weapons it looks high poly a lot of wasted polygons everywhere, you should tile the screws, holes things that are repeatable.
There a lot of great portfolios people have posted up here in polycount you should look at some of them and study more how they have set up their work. Deal with the work first before you move on.
I agree that the textures need alot of work all around and the topology of certain models needs to be tweaked. The steampunk gun I dig that feels like the best out of the bunch, although the cylindrical part at the bottom front has too many sides. Alot of the wasted tris that are present in your models comes from making cylindrical parts to round, some look like their more then 20 sided.
Here are some crits strictly on presentation:
The Banner is slightly too big and you don’t need a fancy logo. Unless you are 2d guy it usually better to stay away from logos like these (they can easily come off as unprofessional).
The text with the white edges really doesn’t read well. Like I look at your site and sort of have to force myself to read your highlighted text, because naturally I look to the simpler more easily read text. (the categories: demo reel…)
So one crit I received personally a long time ago was to stick with the same text threw out your site. It doesn’t look fancy, but its easier to read, and really what you want is your work to do the talking and nothing else.
Those images loading like you have them is a turn off to tons of people including myself. I always prefer a regular image to pop up in ie. Again, its very simple, but much easier imo. And since there are many who don’t like loading images, its best to keep the majority happy and not have them on your site.
The last thing is its cool you have a demo reel up on your site, but personally I never watch them. Its much easier to evaluate your work via high res images. So… I suggest you make your index page your portfolio link page. Everyone seems to want to make cool demo reels but employers really don’t like them, so you’re better off avoiding these on your portfolio. Also, I would work on your presentation with some of your images in your main portfolio section. ATM it seems a bit cluttered and all over the place. As others have mentioned, look at people portfolio sites around Polycount for reference.
The logo is un-needed. It uses bevel and emboss and that's always a little embarrassing and unprofessional.
Most of the thumbnails make it hard to tell what I'm clicking on, which leads me to clicking only on the ones I know what I'm getting. With the long load time its a gamble and more times then not I'll pass on something that could be interesting.
I think you put up everything you've worked on and you need to stick to your strongest pieces to make the best impression possible. If you're having trouble telling what's good and what needs to go, we can help you with that but its important that you start to develop those critical eye skills at some point.
The urinal is kind of weird its in a long skinny stall. Most of the time they're grouped up on a wall maybe with tiny half walls between them. The hardware on top seems kind of small and stretched.
The grenade looks acid washed. Normally people try not to beat up grenades. In general I think your "detailing" the diffuse maps with way too many scratches and dirt.
The normal map on the grenade looks VERY crazybumped, which for models is generally a bad idea because the orientation of the pieces are probably not properly aligned with the texture so the normals project weirdly, which looks to be happening on the lower half of the grenade...
You don't need to display textures at full res (which looks to be way too big for all of the objects they are applied to). For me when I open a texture it hangs off my monitor causing me to scroll, and I have some pretty big monitors... Even if you use giant textures keep the displayed size so it fits most monitors.
Everything from Hostile Takeover, with the exception of the first image of the server room, looks like its from mod made in 1998-99. There are what look to be mossy rocks sitting on carpet... who does that? The rest of the room is pretty spartan so you could pack a few more polys into this detail and give it some trim, maybe some sand and make it a mini Japanese indoor garden that belongs there. But as it is, it doesn't look trendy, it looks odd.
You also say HT was co-produced with another person and I see some stock stuff from Unreal, so it would be good to show or comment on the things you worked on. When taking screenshots take the few seconds to type the hide hud, hide gun commands, also crank up the settings and take full advantage of the in engine post processing effects. If you're unfamiliar with these things, then you need to learn if you're looking to get a job using unrealEd.
Best of lucky buddy, keep working on it all, you're making good progress.
Thanks everybody who gave me comments, I really appreciate any help that I can get. And I Plan on going back and using your suggestions and fixing everything after this week is over with. I am going to take the logo down and and fix the number of polys on the laser gun and the Scar rifle, and re doing the textures. As far as the the way images are viewed that is what a teacher recommended to me and I am looking for something better at this point, and I am going to do new renders with AO or if you guys can recommend something better for maya? that would be great as well. And Ajr do I know you?... how did you know i was moving over seas?
For better renders, I'd recommend using a more neutral gray material and background, and make sure you have a base plane a little ways under the model for bounce light. This way you wont have any absolute darks or lights, and highlights and shadows will both pop on the model. When you go straight white, a lot of the highlights get blown out, and with no ground plane your base shadows will all go to full black.
Well tehrobster2 I dont know you exactly I suppose. I go to A.I Atlanta as well, seen you around and recently was in the same labs as you working on some class projects. Just overheard you was moving to korea and I knew it was you when I seen the MP5 because you was working on the demo reel in the same lab and heard something about a Joker scene. I never run into anyone on polycount from school..perhaps I do but dont know its them.
Anyways this is a great place to get constructive feedback about your work, thats what I realized a while ago.
Hey thanks for the suggestion!, These are helping a lot, and if you guys could suggest some ways I could improve my texturing or know of any tutorials where i could improve that would be great help! and Ajr I am glad to see another person from our school as well, I hope the quarter went well for you .
Replies
I also think the scale/proportion of the objects in the street scene appear off a bit, did you use a ref object to determine roughly the size of everything? Perhaps it's the sidewalk that is jumping out a bit.
I do like the look of the Steampunk gun though.
Because almost everything you have done like the env scene, weapons etc need a lot of work. The scene,render,textures,work flow, nrm, spec need more work. It looks flat to me when you showing the maps and for the weapons it looks high poly a lot of wasted polygons everywhere, you should tile the screws, holes things that are repeatable.
There a lot of great portfolios people have posted up here in polycount you should look at some of them and study more how they have set up their work. Deal with the work first before you move on.
Best of luck to you...and your venture overseas.
The Banner is slightly too big and you don’t need a fancy logo. Unless you are 2d guy it usually better to stay away from logos like these (they can easily come off as unprofessional).
The text with the white edges really doesn’t read well. Like I look at your site and sort of have to force myself to read your highlighted text, because naturally I look to the simpler more easily read text. (the categories: demo reel…)
So one crit I received personally a long time ago was to stick with the same text threw out your site. It doesn’t look fancy, but its easier to read, and really what you want is your work to do the talking and nothing else.
Those images loading like you have them is a turn off to tons of people including myself. I always prefer a regular image to pop up in ie. Again, its very simple, but much easier imo. And since there are many who don’t like loading images, its best to keep the majority happy and not have them on your site.
The last thing is its cool you have a demo reel up on your site, but personally I never watch them. Its much easier to evaluate your work via high res images. So… I suggest you make your index page your portfolio link page. Everyone seems to want to make cool demo reels but employers really don’t like them, so you’re better off avoiding these on your portfolio. Also, I would work on your presentation with some of your images in your main portfolio section. ATM it seems a bit cluttered and all over the place. As others have mentioned, look at people portfolio sites around Polycount for reference.
Good luck man, Keep working hard!
The logo is un-needed. It uses bevel and emboss and that's always a little embarrassing and unprofessional.
Most of the thumbnails make it hard to tell what I'm clicking on, which leads me to clicking only on the ones I know what I'm getting. With the long load time its a gamble and more times then not I'll pass on something that could be interesting.
I think you put up everything you've worked on and you need to stick to your strongest pieces to make the best impression possible. If you're having trouble telling what's good and what needs to go, we can help you with that but its important that you start to develop those critical eye skills at some point.
The urinal is kind of weird its in a long skinny stall. Most of the time they're grouped up on a wall maybe with tiny half walls between them. The hardware on top seems kind of small and stretched.
The grenade looks acid washed. Normally people try not to beat up grenades. In general I think your "detailing" the diffuse maps with way too many scratches and dirt.
The normal map on the grenade looks VERY crazybumped, which for models is generally a bad idea because the orientation of the pieces are probably not properly aligned with the texture so the normals project weirdly, which looks to be happening on the lower half of the grenade...
You don't need to display textures at full res (which looks to be way too big for all of the objects they are applied to). For me when I open a texture it hangs off my monitor causing me to scroll, and I have some pretty big monitors... Even if you use giant textures keep the displayed size so it fits most monitors.
Everything from Hostile Takeover, with the exception of the first image of the server room, looks like its from mod made in 1998-99. There are what look to be mossy rocks sitting on carpet... who does that? The rest of the room is pretty spartan so you could pack a few more polys into this detail and give it some trim, maybe some sand and make it a mini Japanese indoor garden that belongs there. But as it is, it doesn't look trendy, it looks odd.
You also say HT was co-produced with another person and I see some stock stuff from Unreal, so it would be good to show or comment on the things you worked on. When taking screenshots take the few seconds to type the hide hud, hide gun commands, also crank up the settings and take full advantage of the in engine post processing effects. If you're unfamiliar with these things, then you need to learn if you're looking to get a job using unrealEd.
Best of lucky buddy, keep working on it all, you're making good progress.
Anyways this is a great place to get constructive feedback about your work, thats what I realized a while ago.