[Portfolio] Justin Frazee, 3D modeler, Environment Artist
polycounter lvl 11
Hello everyone, I am working through my last semester at college. I would like some critiques as I work on, and finish my portfolio. Some things are not currently working, so excuse that. www.justinfrazee.com
And thank you in advance.
And thank you in advance.
Replies
www.justinfrazee.com
I like your Serenity Station. Got a nice style to it. Board games are cool when you want to be a games designer but you're telling us you want to be a 3D Modeller. Put it in a misc section or something.
Some good work. Still, I like to see stuff in-game. Marmoset is cool and all but I just prefer it when people actually put a scene together in say UDK or Cryengine.
Can't really see anything wrong with it. Resume as an image is an interesting idea. Never thought of that. Might steal that idea.
Anyway right now you seem to be chucking anything you have on there. Your Still Life is an example of that. It's something that should be at the back of really important stuff. Just keep making more stuff, get better and you'll get a job in no time.
I feel like im not good enough to get good feed back, and not bad enough to get good feedback :poly124: im kinda stuck in the middle with alright work. So thank you again for taking the time to reply.
Like a lot of college programs, they do not really get you all the way to employability. My course was the same thing, in fact I don't think there's anything they taught me that I really integrate into my work today. What you ought to be doing is really prioritizing what you should be working on to get you a job. This board game stuff, your still life renders, and even prerendered maya scenes really aren't applicable to the type of job you're going to be looking for. It's good stuff for your general development as a 3d artist, but these aren't exactly pieces that are particularly marketable if you are looking for a job in games.
If you're looking to add new content to your portfolio, I'd highly recommend doing something in UDK, or an existing game engine that can import and render your work nicely. Build a scene, and try to make it as technically sound as possible. Try not to make the scope of the project huge (because it means more work overall), enclosed spaces or a simple room is great. Account for things like the number of texture maps you're using, efficient use of triangles, and probably most importantly make sure it all looks good. Show your scene, your wires, and maps, and that would be a great place to start for expanding your portfolio.
The thumbnails are a decent size and the fullsize images aren't too small. I think your wireframe presentation on the radiosity lit meshes is a bit off-putting though. The wireframe is barely visible and the blown out lighting prevents you from seeing the topography of the mesh. Simple 3 point lighting is great for showcasing objects.
For me, the DaVinci Station and Troop Transport are your strongest pieces. The station shows some interesting architecture and use of natural lighting. Is this a real building or of your own design?
The troop transport has a few issues I think. The texturing seems a bit rough. The treads seem to have some angled notches that go over the top of the geometry, which looks really odd, like a UV mistake. The texture in general seems a bit grimey, pushing more towards concrete than metal. Don't feel the need to overlay so much texture detail as it often just comes off as noise.
I'd also look into mirroring aspects of the UV map. There's a lot of areas that you mirrored in the texture anyways and the extra space would give you more pixel density in the texture. Parts of the mesh that need unique texture (like the letting) can be done with floating alpha decals, or just cut geometry in an remap that portion flipped in the U direction.
@Arcanox I admit the iframe was something I came up with, although it was partially to address the way I've received advice, although now that I have seen more portfolios from those in the industry I would do it differently now, and will probably redo it soon.
I have recently (as in this semester) realized just how much the school does not help me get a job, and have tried to concentrate more on things that will help me get a job.
As for a few of my other pieces I have to have a certain amount of work in my portfolio to be allowed to graduate, so they are essentially fillers. And based on all of your feed back i will ax all of them as soon as i get my signatures from the faculty.
@Snader I had to show that i had a place for my case study as this is another requirement to graduate.
@Joshua Stubbles cut the bottom half? Will do, as soon as i get those signatures.
Da Vinci station is my own design, should I show my concept sketch (its kind of rough). Although the curving supports were taken directly from an existing building.
I will definitely rework the Troop Transport. I did it when i was first learning UV mapping... so it really sucks.
Thank you all again for the feed back, once i graduate it should really help.
Please do not take any of my responses as trying to fight what you said, I was merely trying to explain some of the situation i am in.
Anyway you should tell your teachers to look at these three portfolio's as examples of what their students should really have on their folio's.
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/
http://www.brameulaers.com/
http://www.philipk.net/
Tell them, a stranger on the internet suggests they try and teach more current gen stuff and get their students to match above quality and not graduate them until they reach that level
www.justinfrazee.com/beta
hopefully this one will be much faster then the old one.
The extreme letterboxes make 2 and 3 unintelligible, and 1 and 4 suffer as well even though they're landscapes. You don't have a lot of pieces so making the previews taller wouldn't hurt the site.
The beta site is a lot better than your first so stick with that.
I'm just gonna go down the list on your site and give some C.
1. I did some Arch viz stuff too and like you i felt i should put it in cause its environments and its pretty to look at. But its doesn't really tell someone how well of an artist you are, because everything i high rez simple geometry and there is very little texture work. But its one of your better pieces so i wouldnt say remove it, maybe put it after your Serenity Station.
2. The ground plain looks terrible get rid of it. I personally don't think you need 3 wire view, maybe one, but just wires and not shaded. AND NO GROUND PLAIN. Did you make a high rez and bake normals? if so show render a view out. Your texture work is pretty shitty, it looks like you found a rust metal texture, put it on it. I don't see an AO map either. Render one out, either from the high rez, or if you didn't make a high rez then just from that geometry, it should help to give your model some dept and help separate pieces out so we can tell what the hell is going on. I know Todd got you guys the eat3D tutorials, watch the texturing one again. You need to add scratches, rusted corners, specific ware and tear areas based off how this thing is used.
3. Ground plain again. Something that threw me off was the scratches and scrapes on this thing. How did something so large get that much scraped paint in those areas. Your texture work needs to help show the viewer the scale of your piece. So scale all of that down alot. Good job on the engines though, make everything match that quality. Again 1 wireframe.
4. I like this, I like the design, lighting is good. The concrete floor seems a bit blah or maybe just too blown out, but thats about it.
I also a agree with what people were saying above.
Good luck man!
thanks for finding me steven, they never did get back to us about your guys' contact info so i couldn't email. Thanks for the critiques, its just what i needed.