[Portfolio] – Simon Hughes - Environment Artist

A Rabid Moose!!!

Hi everyone!

I am a recent graduate looking for work in the UK at an exciting and innovative games studio.

Here is my current Portfolio:

www.simonhughes1989.daportfolio.com

Any critique to do with the content of the website is welcome as I am always looking for ways to improve and learn. I look forward to your feedback.

Thanks!

cholden

Site never loads for me, just sits there hanging.

Edit: Based on what others said, I sat at let it load. After about 5-6 minutes it appeared.

Site and content are ok. Gotta get rid of the splash page, white background is too much contrast against your scenes and general slow to load content. But it all looks pretty good.

Mike Yevin

For me the site took a ridiculous amount of time to come up (looked like it was hanging but then all of a sudden the whole thing appeared). I'm not sure what could be causing the hang up at the beginning but its something that should probably be addressed.

The portfolio section of your site was very easy to get around, and after the site had been initially loaded I noticed only a few seconds to load each high quality picture. The only thing I would suggest is get rid of the splash page, and have the viewer go straight into your portfolio section; the easier it is for a potential employer to see your art right away, the better.

Nice art pieces, the only crit as far as they go is possibly including a little information about them (engine, tri count, etc).

Nice portfolio overall, clean design and easy to navigate around in.

rawrsie

deviant art portfolio site is slow as shit for me too, and i'm not a fan of white backgrounds. But if the site was quicker to load it definitely would be a serviceable portfolio.

There's some nice work in there. I'd start working on some new stuff too, and tweak the lighting on the treasure chest a bit. It gets kind of blown out near the top.

great stuff, keep it up!

A Rabid Moose!!!

Thanks for the crit guys. I am using the deviant art portfolio as a template. It has been working fine up until now.. so I am a bit bothered that it is playing up. I will see if I can get rid of the splash page too.

There are details if you click the info button at the bottom to do with tri count etc.

The boxing gym was in UDK. It is an interactive environment with basic physics and particle effects for things like dust in the air. There are some animated textures for the fans aswell. I have a video of it, but I am not sure how to show it on this site template atm.

I will see if a darker background improves it and make a decision.

Thanks for the advice, if anyone has any other opinions on it let me know. I will try and address all of those soon.

achillesian

not bad, everything there looked pretty good, especially the fantasy chest. The only thing that didn't seem as cool was the tree... Leafy area seemed to saturated maybe?

tekmatic

Hey there, nice little clean site you got. You gotta love DA for allowing us poor artists have a free folio setup. I had no issues loading your site. Might have been a hickup on DA's servers that particular day.

Keep up the good work, and I am actually digging the splash page.....lots of talented free lancers use some sort of splash page to represent themselves!

Wombatinahat

I'd get rid of the splash screen and get the portfolio on the front page. The content itself is pretty strong you want to be showing it off as soon as someone enters your url.

A Rabid Moose!!!

not bad, everything there looked pretty good, especially the fantasy chest. The only thing that didn't seem as cool was the tree... Leafy area seemed to saturated maybe?

Yea you are probably right.. I was looking at the site on another monitor and the whole site looked quite saturated. Maybe I need to bring it down a bit?

Karsh

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is that its always a good idea to put your name, email and webaddress on them so If someone sees your image by itself on forums and stuff they will know where it came from. Because it would be a shame to have a possible employer having seen one of your images from your porfolio and be interested in seeing more only to have no idea who or where it came from.

A Rabid Moose!!!

Yea great idea Karsh, I will do that .

I think the speed issue is fixed, I have asked a lot of people to check it and they all say it loads in 2 seconds now which is good. I have also fixed the over saturation of a few of the images, I think it was down to my laptop screen being calibrated incorrectly.

It isnt possible to remove the splash page on the DA template, but I have given clear instructions so the user knows where to go instantly.

Still applying all over the UK I'll just keep going until I get somewhere and I will keep working on new stuff in the mean time.

Thank you for all your help and support guys

amotaf

Hey Rabid,

Really nice work on your portfolio, I dig the boxing environment, I have noticed a few things about it though the little bin near the desk on the first image, did you recently put that particular duplicate of the asset in there?

As it doesn't seem to be catching the light from the windows directly above it, also the chair in the middle near that central pillar the back leg doesn't seem to be casting a shadow though it's within the light.

I would really love to see more shots of the environment like the boxing ring, punch bags and speed bags etc. You've really put a lot of good work into those pieces and it would be great to have a couple of more shots of the scene in there so that we can see that wonderful detail.

Also in the second image of the boxing ring where you can see volume light coming through the upper window, why not put some type of particle effect there to simulate dust particles in the air which you can see because of the volume light. It would really help to give it that more engaging feel and give the impression that the scene has an atmospehere.

It would be cool to see more angles of the house...other than that everything looks good.

Great job...

A Rabid Moose!!!

Thanks amotaf!

I appreciate your kind comments and critique.

I will try and get some more shots in there today, and correct the lighting issues. I have realised that those particular lighting problems go away in newer versions of the UDK so I will see which one works best and retake the shots.

I have actually got an existing particle effect in there, but based on the amount of comments that I have had I will make it more prominent .

Thanks again, it is great to have some encouragement .

A Rabid Moose!!!

I've changed the shots a bit using a different version of UDK. Helped with the lighting. I have also made the particle effect more obvious.

Got some more shots in there as well for you amotaf!

Let me know what you think and any changes that need to be made!