[portfolio] Bastian Pastoors - Environment Art - Student

noname

[edit]
hey,

I completely updated my site and hope to get some feedback from you guys. I tried to improve it based on the feedback I got, but also kept some of my own ideas of what makes a good portfolio page.
I hope it's a good idea to bump my old thread instead of starting a new one?

My main concerns are:
- I used to have thumbnails at the top of the page, but like it more without them; having the first image show up directly instead. What are your thoughts on that?
- Is everything to cramped together? Should there be some space between the images?
- General feedback about the art shown (obviously). I updated two of the old scenes and took out the former first one completely (in case someone reads the old comments and gets confused).

Well ..thanks for your time

[/edit]


Hi,

I just finished the first draft of my online portfolio and thought I'd ask for your opinions. There is still some time for me to add/replace content, because I won't have finished school before august.

www.bpastoors.com

Thanks

tekmatic

Good start so far, but you need to work on certain areas.

1. I would get rid of the "Blog" link since your blog can be used as your portfolio. The site and blog almost look the same so why repeat it.
2. You need to present your CV better, there are lots of sample layout for CVs on the net. It looks like you took a word document (without much formating) and just converted it to a pdf.

On the positive side, I see the progression of your work. Your first environment is the weakest but you are showing better ones later. I would get rid of the first project.

Hope this helps.

Good luck

low odor

I think the layout works well. It gets straight to the point. I think the weakest piece is the OTT concept. The Modeling is solid, but the textures are really flat. I think with the floating island scene, you could really bring it to life if you made the material edges(particularly the grass) less uniform. I would think of it terms of butting two things up against each other and figuring out how they would react. If you take grass and stone, and put them together, the grass is usually going to overlay the stone edge- and your grass edge should be a jagged array of tufts and blades. It would probably be cool to have something to break up the stone under the island as well- some roots..gopher hole...etc.

Good luck with your work. Keep pushing and polishing


Edit: I disagree with tekmatic on the first piece. I would maybe loose the DOF in the renders. Also, what happened to the roof? I think if you got rid of the straight line ..punch out a couple brick..add some rubble..it would make it feel more natural..and in general go back to all your edges and find a way to have them make the scene more exciting

ariofighter

You are doing well so far, but there are two things I would say.

One: This is a personal preference, but I like to see some info about the pieces. Things like texture usage, or poly count. What engine was used or is it a Max render. (I have a feeling like its the latter, witch brings me to my second recommendation.)

Two: I would work on getting your models into a real time engine as soon as you can. (That is if you are still using max renders) The first bit of advice I was given was a game studio wants to see that you can work in a engine, no reason not to start early.

Keep it up.

Striff

I would center the website. Also I think your images are too large. Make them around 900 pixels wide, and then make it so you can click on them for a larger version.

noname

Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate it. I hope I won't sound rude or cocky disagreeing with some feedback you gave me. I think (or hope ^^) the points I disagree on come down to personal preference anyways.


tekmatic: The blog was supposed to be a place for me to post work that I don't want to add to my portfolio, and also to share some shots of my wips. Personally, I really like the possibility to get to someone's blog from their portfolio quite easily, so I can follow their rss-feed. At the moment the blog might show mostly the same images on the first page, but that will hopefully change soon.

I don't really get what I should change about my resum

S2Engine

Pretty cool stuff. I actually really like the Ottoman concept and think it could be pretty great, but like others have said it needs more texture work. I initially thought it was just applying diffuse color nodes in Maya or Max. I think some simple design elements like painted stripes or insignias etc. would make it pop, especially if you can keep that style going.

As for the first environment, I think some more AO and shadowing would help it read better; and for that I think you may need to get out of Marmoset and into a real game engine like UDK. I haven't used the latest Marmoset so I could be wrong, but in older versions I felt like it was better at displaying single assets rather than full environs.

Also, Maya viewport is technically realtime, yes, but it's not a game engine which is what I think they were getting at. Depending on the subject you'll probably find you get a lot nicer results in a game engine than in Maya/Max. It'll probably surprise you the first time you place a point light in for example UDK and move it around and get awesome shadows.

Lastly I do kinda have to agree about the images being a tad large. I also don't like having to click to full size, but maybe just reduce the size slightly so there's room for the eye to breathe.

noname

hey,

I completely updated my site and hope to get some feedback from you guys. I tried to improve it based on the feedback I got, but also kept some of my own ideas of what makes a good portfolio page.
I hope it's a good idea to bump my old thread instead of starting a new one?

My main concerns are:
- I used to have thumbnails at the top of the page, but like it more without them; having the first image show up directly instead. What are your thoughts on that?
- Is everything to cramped together? Should there be some space between the images?
- General feedback about the art shown (obviously). I updated two of the old scenes and took out the former first one completely (in case someone reads the old comments and gets confused).

Well ..thanks for your time