[Portfolio] – Sarah Dahlinger, (looking for work and critique)

Waterbear

HI Everyone,

This is my first time posting. I just found this site today. I was recently laid off from my previous employer of 5 years. However, I've been trying to build my 3D skills for a few years now.

Critique and job opportunities welcome.

I'm from Ma and would only like to relocate as a last resort (just bought a condo a year ago)

I'm also open to offsite/freelance opportunities.

However, if you don't know of any jobs and have some critique, please don't be shy.


http://www.sarahdahlinger.com/

Thanks all,

Sarah

Shogun3d

Hello Sarah,
I think perhaps the thumbnails are a bit small overall. Also, the paper mouse overlay effect is pretty cheesy so you should probably do away with it and utilize an edge highlight or different mouseover thats a bit more effective in popping out the thumbs.

You have some interesting characters although I think the mesh flow could be optimized in some areas. As far as the Bridge is concerned though I think perhaps it would better suited to utilize tileable textures to allow tighter detail but from an rts perspective its not too noticeable.

I noticed the demo reel music, sounds like Vanessa Mae or Bond.

tda

The creatures all seem pretty cool, but the human characters have way too much desaturated grey in the texture maps. Low saturation and grey tones in skin makes things look really dead. If you remove that, they'll really look a lot better.

Jet_Pilot

I see A LOT of wasted space in your texture sheets. I cant really help with the character stuff, but that bridge you made I would break that up into 3 or 4 tile able textures and then use Free floating decals to break it up further. good luck

popngear

A portfolio is best served when only your strongest work is displayed. I would concentrate it most on your creatures, maybe put them in more interesting poses. The bridge could probably be removed altogether I think because of the inefficient UV usage. It looks like texturing/painting would be your best asset and if you removed a lot of the heavy lighting in your diffuse and transferred the information into a normal map your employability would take a step up IMO. All the renders could also benefit from another light also; A simple 3 point light rig would help. Lastly, I kind of mentioned it already, but some of the UV layouts are very wasteful. The blue creature especially has about 50% wasted space. In those cases, you can create a 2:1 ratio texture ie. 2048x1024 and not have to rotate the UVs on to a diagonal. What I do in those cases is texture at 1:1 and place UVs in only the bottom half of the UV space. After the texture is completed, crop the texture to 2:1, then scale your UVs in Y by 200% from the origin using snapping or a script. Happy job hunting

pbot

It seems like your strength is really animation, but hey I'm just a student,

waterbear1224

Thanks for the crits guys. I have a few questions.

It looks like texturing/painting would be your best asset and if you removed a lot of the heavy lighting in your diffuse and transferred the information into a normal map your employability would take a step up IMO.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you explain further?

I would break that up into 3 or 4 tile able textures and then use Free floating decals to break it up further.

How do you make a free floating decal? Are there any tutorials around for that?

Thanks again!

helldiver

I'm no expert, so take my comments in stride;

I believe he means you painted highlights unto your diffuse. Instead paint subtle highlights and use a normal map to do most of the highlights and shadowing on your model.

To create a decal, draw up the decal then make sure you have an alpha for it, either as a seperate file or in its alpha channel (dds, tga). Game engines should have a decal feature where you pull up a decal and slap it on to a model. Your 3D modelling app should have a similar feature except you'll be doing it through a material.

When I first saw your site my only complaint is the use of Flash. I'd prefer to have a thumbnail that pulls up the image without the use of flash. Some folks might not have the latest edition of flash going.

The bridge looks beautiful. The problem is that you're killing all the nice texture work by cramming the whole side of the bridge into a texture sheet. Instead like others said, the side of bridge can be mirrored and tiled. You can then make those peices larger.

I did an example sheet here:


I'm pretty sure the guys on here can make it even more efficient. But you get the idea.

Some of your other work could use the same treatment. The woman for example; http://www.sarahdahlinger.com/Art/pelligri_maps.jpg could be worked into a single diffuse texture. Unless its a main character, a character that's going to have switachble body parts (like clothing, faces, etc) you should keep to one sheet.

You might also want to start looking into use normal maps. Personally I hate normal maps...

Take it you're a fan of the Monster Manual?

waterbear1224

Oh ok, a picture is worth 1000 words for real. I get it now.

All of the things I make have normal maps, but I was always told to paint in the highlights and shadows (into the diffuse).

How do you guys use normal maps to handle that? I'm going for game stuff, so I've been using a cgfx shader with a diffuse, normal and spec map.


and yes, Monster manual for the win. It's quicker than making them up on my own.


Thanks again

helldiver

waterbear1224 wrote: »

All of the things I make have normal maps, but I was always told to paint in the highlights and shadows (into the diffuse).

I think they mean on some of them you should be more subtle? And then let the normal do most of the work. Fix your specular and scene lighting so that it pulls up more of the highlights and shadows.

Anyhow, I recomend showing your Normal and Spec next to your diffuse. You might also want to show off the high-res model as well as low res wires.

Now days the low res wires are kind of important to show to a company for a ton of reasons; polygon efficiency, how easy is your model to rig for animation, how will it crunch, etc etc. I'm sure you know.