edit- felt like giving a better crit, my point was that the first thing that put me off was the header if i was looking at this i probably wouldnt go any further...bad i know...but i made assumption about the textures you would make based on your header and i didnt like it ... its one of the first things you see ...
having said that dont look at my portfolio its like 4 years out of date and i dont accord by my own rules... ;-)
but in this case if you cant be bothered making a fancy banner make it simple... plain and simple let the art talk
Pripyat scene need lighting. it could be good, but not without some nice lighting and possibly larger images.
The laser rifle is a no go. I'd drop it.
Desert Straggler is your best piece, but it's still got some weird things about it. Lighting seems more like a default light instead of setup to represent the sunset. Some color at atmosphere could go a long way here. The assets themselves look pretty good, but individually they all stick out from each other. As in, no blending between anything and the ground, textures on terrain seem to have no transition, nothing grounded by light or dirt, and so on. I'm proved lighting, textures, AO, decals, etc. could tie this scene together.
Definitely good points Cholden, duely noted. Unfortunately, this is all the work I have so far, so I have to keep all of it, but I'll bear all this in mind for the future. Not so sure about the embossing thing though. What does everyone else think?
The header on your site is way too large; takes up far too much room on the screen. The work images are too small, they are only slightly larger than their respective thumbnails. Your resume needs your name and contact info on it; also condense it to a single page, you do not have enough professional working experience to warrant a 2 page resume.
I agree with cholden and from my little experience. Absolutely nobody will hire you with the laser rifle in your portfolio.
The rifle looks like an very early attempt in modelling an texturing. Your other scenes are way better but there is much room for improvement.
The rifle was the first asset I've clicked on when visitng your portfolio. If I had to search for a possible artist to hire, I wouldn't have bothered to see the rest of your work.
Try to get your scenes into udk as a first step. Work on your lighting. Especially the the pripyat scene has no light setup at all. Although I think your textures here are a bit too noisy.
So my suggestion: Get the pripyat scene into udk. Do an interesting and moodfull light setup. After that look at your textures and materials and how they appear with proper lighting. Work on those unitl it looks good. And drop the laser rifle.
Edit:
Just read your resume: You are stating various fields of experience like zbrush, Highpoly modelling etc. but your work is not showing that you are capable to do this. If you claim to bee good in zbrush show some decent sculpts. If you claim to do nice high polys, show them.
I've heard from some people that 2 pages is bad for my amount of experience, and I've heard from some that it's better if it's spaced out more even if it's two pages. Anyone care to weigh in?
Yeah, I used Weebler to make my website, and I can't see any way to shrink down the header. Unless I can use some html to fix it? Don't know anything about html though.
Unfortunately, I lost the original files for the laser rifle and Pripyat, so I can't recapture the images. But, maybe the desert could use some larger images....
@Slave_zero: OUCH! Lol. No, it's good to have such honesty, i appreciate it. So this begs the question, would you go ahead and try applying to different places with the stuff I currently have, or would you wait until I have some better stuff? Does it hurt to try in the mean time while I improve on my stuff?
EDIT: Are you saying that my normal maps aren't really showing in my current work, or just that you want to see some high poly sculpts straight out of zbrush? Also, Everything is already in UDK. If you can't tell, I'm taking it as that's bad?
Only show your best work if you are really wanting to apply, so I would dedicate the page to the desert scene mainly till you finish updating as that looks like your most recent and best work.
Okay, so I reworked the site. www.ryansanderson.com The layout works better, I think. The header isn't so fricken' huge, lol. Also, made the resume one page. I think I'll do the following based on everyone's critiques:
1) Drop the laser rifle
2) Get higher res pics of everything
3) Rework the lighting on "Pripyat" and "Desert Straggler". I'll have to re-import everything on Pripyat since I lost the map file, but that's life.
4) Work on a high detail prop to replace the laser rifle. It'll be a zbrush render. No in-game stuff.
1. I'm surfing with an iPad, and the desert scene isn't showing up. Just getting question marks where the images are supposed to be.
2. Lighting on the tiptop scene is of utmost importance. (udk should help fix this)
3. Your about me page doesn't have anything on it. (could eb an iPad bug)
4. Keep it up, your showing you got drive by posting here, but If i were you I would probably be working oj more content before you start applying.
I echo a lot of what has already been said. The content is currently the issue...there's just not enough of it, along with an acceptable quality to even think about applying to places in my eyes.
The first scene isn't loading for me currently when I click through, but from the little thumbnail it does look like your strongest piece. The Pripyat scene looks nicely modelled from a LP mesh standpoint, and it looks like you know what you're doing in that regard, although again, work some lighting into it using UDK and see if you can get a better final result to display.
Your CV section looks like you've grabbed a load of buzz words so you can pass the HR department (this can be effective I admit), but I can't see any evidence of things like 'hand-painted textures' for example.
I apologise if this comes off in a harsh tone, but as said above you've taken the time to get some feedback here on your website which shows you are willing to improve and have that drive. Keep that fire burning inside, etc.
For now though I recommend forgetting the website and continue onwards to learn along with making new content.
From my experience I would say spend the time to get some stuff together. As said in many other threads quality goes over quantity. Which means one awesome environment is all it takes. But this piece must be really great executed and presented.
For now you should focus on improving your stuff. And its always a good idea to start something completely new. Personally I'd rather start something new instead fixing old pieces to hell.
The reason behind this is: Most of my older projects have flaws in more than one area. Some aspects of the models can be improved, some aspects of textures. As soon as fixing an old project means redoing quite a lot to see serious improvements I rather spend the time on something new. Because sometimes things only get better if you start from the beginning. So maybe fix your desert strangler work but don't hessitate on starting a new project and move on.
You can apply with your current portfolio, but remember that your first impression is most important. You don't want to flood various studios with your applications everytime you've completed a new portfolio piece. So I think its better to have a solid portfolio before applying.
Beside the option of fixing your current scenes you also could start a new piece. Maybe a single assets (as you stated in zbrush for example) but you should finish this one to an ingame asset and try to make it as outstanding as you can.
When you've accomplished this go back to your old scenes and judge them. Are they still on par with your current skill level, what needs fixing? Decide to either fix it properly or drop it and produce something new.
Thanks so much, everyone. For the first time in a long while, I feel like I'm getting some honest to god critiques, and that's what I need. I kind of feel like I got punched in the stomach today, due to the fact that I really thought I was ready to work for a studio. It's better though that I know the general consensus on that, so thanks for the advice and truth dosage, lol. I'll give this all some thought....
More specifically, how would some of you go about fixing the lighting in the desert environment? I have a directional light that serves as the sun, and I don't know what else I should add to it. I didn't realize that there's something more you can do to an exterior environment like this. Much appreciated.
EDIT: Fixed the images not showing up. Was busy getting some higher res pics.
Hi. The desert scene has potential, I agree with the other comments about it. The major thing that instantly stands out is the ground texture/transition, its very harsh and unnatural. Could use some more variation as well, the color is very strong. In regards to the other scene you have there I feel that the textures arent working together, seems alot of stuff was slapped together. Overall the compostion and story behind it isnt there.
Naturally, things tend to fade together over time thanks to dirt and weather. For example, a clean brick wall with dirt ground after a rain storm the dirt has splashed up on the wall and dried.
Nothing in your scene includes this. The grass is totally green at the base, the crashed plane is nice and clean, the rocks were taken from the moon and neatly placed in this red sand desert.
This can be easily fixed with decals or some dynamic material that knows where the ground is.
As for lighting, there's a lot more to consider beyond a single default sun light for creating a believable atmosphere (world environmemt color, height fog, post). Not to mention breathing some life into your terrain could help the result as opposed to making the sun light a giant red sheet.
Everyone else is nailing my thoughts exactly, so what I'll throw in is do you really want your phone number on your front page? Just have a link to an email, for gods sake don't put your actual phone number on the internet for anyone to get. I would lose the about me section. Personally, I think they're silly, as everyones' reads the same, "At a young age, I always liked games, but it wasn't until I started getting into art that I knew I wanted to make that my profession, blah blah.."
do you really want your phone number on your front page?
I was wandering about this the other day, cause I'm in the process of making my portfolio site. I considered putting it on mine after seeing phone numbers on a few high profile portfolios but as you said, if you think about it doesn't really sound like a good idea.
The colour is very saturated and it doesn't seem to vary much across the environment. Blending a couple of textures together would help make it seem more natural and less like orange carpet.
As for transitions and things like that, look at where an object, whether it is a rock or building or tree meets the ground and see that in your scene, there is a sharp transition from the ground to that object. This is generally having a detrimental effect on your scene.
The final pic is a softer transition but the strong colour of the orange floor does not play nicely with your cliff/rock surface.
On the blending, color, etc.: Ah, okay. That makes sense. Thanks for elaborating.
As for the phone number, yeah, that's a good idea. Deleting in 3...2...1...
I really can't express how helpful everyone has been on this thread. It feels like it's been a long time since I've really gotten some helpful feedback, so props to all of you. Polycount for the win
hey dude I did a couple quick paintovers of the desert scene, mainly focused on the ground. it needs more variation. in a game, ground and walls ususally fill 80% of the screen so make sure they look ace. blending in some grass and sandy rocks would really help break it up.
the only other thing I did was boost the levels so it wasn't so dark and murky and lowered the saturation of the ground so there was less contrast and things kinda blend together a bit more. these were really quick and just an idea on how to make the biggest impact by only changing a couple textures.
for your lighting try to incorporate some ambient blue into the shadows instead of having them pure black, usually a warm directional and a cool ambient light helps create decent outdoor lighting.
Pixelmasher.....you....are.....insane. And I love it, lol. You definitely did not have to go to these lengths to help me, and I really can't express how much I appreciate it. This made the light bulb appear in my head, and I know exactly what I need to do now. THANK YOU.
One thing though, the way you changed the lighting looks nice and really realistic, but it kind of makes it look more like daytime as opposed to a sunset. Is that what you had in mind?
yea it totally pushed it towards daytime you are right. some shots of a nice clear blue sky bright day could help sell it as more of a hot dry place, and then a couple sunset shots would be dope too. sunset lighting is a little harder, but by tweaking the levels a bit and adding an overall hue adjust this could be kinda a starting point.
the main thing with sunset is to sometimes start to turn the ambient in the shadows more towards purple and pinks i tossed some in really quick, its not accurate at all really but mainly in areas of shadow. also adding more ambient and having your shadows not as hard as during the day really helps. its actually pretty close to the lighting you had just with some color added and level adjustments to help things pop a bit more so you still get areas of brightness for contrast. hopefully this helps a bit dude!
Replies
edit- felt like giving a better crit, my point was that the first thing that put me off was the header if i was looking at this i probably wouldnt go any further...bad i know...but i made assumption about the textures you would make based on your header and i didnt like it ... its one of the first things you see ...
having said that dont look at my portfolio its like 4 years out of date and i dont accord by my own rules... ;-)
but in this case if you cant be bothered making a fancy banner make it simple... plain and simple let the art talk
The laser rifle is a no go. I'd drop it.
Desert Straggler is your best piece, but it's still got some weird things about it. Lighting seems more like a default light instead of setup to represent the sunset. Some color at atmosphere could go a long way here. The assets themselves look pretty good, but individually they all stick out from each other. As in, no blending between anything and the ground, textures on terrain seem to have no transition, nothing grounded by light or dirt, and so on. I'm proved lighting, textures, AO, decals, etc. could tie this scene together.
87 diffuse maps
43 normal maps
26 specular maps
(That's 156 maps in total, if you like math)
114 props
87 materials
for reals?
I agree with cholden and from my little experience. Absolutely nobody will hire you with the laser rifle in your portfolio.
The rifle looks like an very early attempt in modelling an texturing. Your other scenes are way better but there is much room for improvement.
The rifle was the first asset I've clicked on when visitng your portfolio. If I had to search for a possible artist to hire, I wouldn't have bothered to see the rest of your work.
Try to get your scenes into udk as a first step. Work on your lighting. Especially the the pripyat scene has no light setup at all. Although I think your textures here are a bit too noisy.
So my suggestion: Get the pripyat scene into udk. Do an interesting and moodfull light setup. After that look at your textures and materials and how they appear with proper lighting. Work on those unitl it looks good. And drop the laser rifle.
Edit:
Just read your resume: You are stating various fields of experience like zbrush, Highpoly modelling etc. but your work is not showing that you are capable to do this. If you claim to bee good in zbrush show some decent sculpts. If you claim to do nice high polys, show them.
I've heard from some people that 2 pages is bad for my amount of experience, and I've heard from some that it's better if it's spaced out more even if it's two pages. Anyone care to weigh in?
Yeah, I used Weebler to make my website, and I can't see any way to shrink down the header.
Unfortunately, I lost the original files for the laser rifle and Pripyat, so I can't recapture the images. But, maybe the desert could use some larger images....
Keep it coming, this is all good stuff.
EDIT: Are you saying that my normal maps aren't really showing in my current work, or just that you want to see some high poly sculpts straight out of zbrush? Also, Everything is already in UDK. If you can't tell, I'm taking it as that's bad?
1) Drop the laser rifle
2) Get higher res pics of everything
3) Rework the lighting on "Pripyat" and "Desert Straggler". I'll have to re-import everything on Pripyat since I lost the map file, but that's life.
4) Work on a high detail prop to replace the laser rifle. It'll be a zbrush render. No in-game stuff.
Thoughts?
1. I'm surfing with an iPad, and the desert scene isn't showing up. Just getting question marks where the images are supposed to be.
2. Lighting on the tiptop scene is of utmost importance. (udk should help fix this)
3. Your about me page doesn't have anything on it. (could eb an iPad bug)
4. Keep it up, your showing you got drive by posting here, but If i were you I would probably be working oj more content before you start applying.
The first scene isn't loading for me currently when I click through, but from the little thumbnail it does look like your strongest piece. The Pripyat scene looks nicely modelled from a LP mesh standpoint, and it looks like you know what you're doing in that regard, although again, work some lighting into it using UDK and see if you can get a better final result to display.
Your CV section looks like you've grabbed a load of buzz words so you can pass the HR department (this can be effective I admit), but I can't see any evidence of things like 'hand-painted textures' for example.
I apologise if this comes off in a harsh tone, but as said above you've taken the time to get some feedback here on your website which shows you are willing to improve and have that drive. Keep that fire burning inside, etc.
For now though I recommend forgetting the website and continue onwards to learn along with making new content.
For now you should focus on improving your stuff. And its always a good idea to start something completely new. Personally I'd rather start something new instead fixing old pieces to hell.
The reason behind this is: Most of my older projects have flaws in more than one area. Some aspects of the models can be improved, some aspects of textures. As soon as fixing an old project means redoing quite a lot to see serious improvements I rather spend the time on something new. Because sometimes things only get better if you start from the beginning. So maybe fix your desert strangler work but don't hessitate on starting a new project and move on.
You can apply with your current portfolio, but remember that your first impression is most important. You don't want to flood various studios with your applications everytime you've completed a new portfolio piece. So I think its better to have a solid portfolio before applying.
Beside the option of fixing your current scenes you also could start a new piece. Maybe a single assets (as you stated in zbrush for example) but you should finish this one to an ingame asset and try to make it as outstanding as you can.
When you've accomplished this go back to your old scenes and judge them. Are they still on par with your current skill level, what needs fixing? Decide to either fix it properly or drop it and produce something new.
More specifically, how would some of you go about fixing the lighting in the desert environment? I have a directional light that serves as the sun, and I don't know what else I should add to it. I didn't realize that there's something more you can do to an exterior environment like this. Much appreciated.
EDIT: Fixed the images not showing up. Was busy getting some higher res pics.
www.ryansanderson.com
Nothing in your scene includes this. The grass is totally green at the base, the crashed plane is nice and clean, the rocks were taken from the moon and neatly placed in this red sand desert.
This can be easily fixed with decals or some dynamic material that knows where the ground is.
As for lighting, there's a lot more to consider beyond a single default sun light for creating a believable atmosphere (world environmemt color, height fog, post). Not to mention breathing some life into your terrain could help the result as opposed to making the sun light a giant red sheet.
I was wandering about this the other day, cause I'm in the process of making my portfolio site. I considered putting it on mine after seeing phone numbers on a few high profile portfolios but as you said, if you think about it doesn't really sound like a good idea.
As for transitions and things like that, look at where an object, whether it is a rock or building or tree meets the ground and see that in your scene, there is a sharp transition from the ground to that object. This is generally having a detrimental effect on your scene.
The final pic is a softer transition but the strong colour of the orange floor does not play nicely with your cliff/rock surface.
edit: i need to type faster!
As for the phone number, yeah, that's a good idea. Deleting in 3...2...1...
I really can't express how helpful everyone has been on this thread. It feels like it's been a long time since I've really gotten some helpful feedback, so props to all of you. Polycount for the win
the only other thing I did was boost the levels so it wasn't so dark and murky and lowered the saturation of the ground so there was less contrast and things kinda blend together a bit more. these were really quick and just an idea on how to make the biggest impact by only changing a couple textures.
for your lighting try to incorporate some ambient blue into the shadows instead of having them pure black, usually a warm directional and a cool ambient light helps create decent outdoor lighting.
One thing though, the way you changed the lighting looks nice and really realistic, but it kind of makes it look more like daytime as opposed to a sunset. Is that what you had in mind?
the main thing with sunset is to sometimes start to turn the ambient in the shadows more towards purple and pinks i tossed some in really quick, its not accurate at all really but mainly in areas of shadow. also adding more ambient and having your shadows not as hard as during the day really helps. its actually pretty close to the lighting you had just with some color added and level adjustments to help things pop a bit more so you still get areas of brightness for contrast. hopefully this helps a bit dude!
Thanks again for the help. Much appreciated
too much contrast, too much noise, poor lighting