[Portfolio] - snow's entry level stuff

snow

Hi guys,

Looking for some critiques before I shoot my portfolio out next week, I'm looking to work anywhere in Australia as I'm very keen to relocate to persue my passion.

www.timmcleod.net

My only real question in regards to applying at companies, is whether or not to apply for the position of "Junior environment artist" or just plain "Environment artist".

This is my first portfolio so let me know if I've missed the mark. The resume links are down while I'm updating it.

Thanks as always everyone.

Mathew O

I'm no expert but I wouldn't get rid of any of it, it all looks nice and shows different areas of your skill

Serp

Work is great. I would apply for junior environment artist jobs and environment artist jobs.

snow

Thanks both of you.

I'm just not sure when I contact companies that don't display any hiring opportunities (hence I have no title to work off), whether to put in my cover letter that I'm applying for the position of junior or not - if that makes sense.

TDub

Looks cool Tim This is Tyler from primal. Glad to see you are still working at this!

snow

:O I need to hop on skype again if I can remember my details XD

Farfarer

None of your resume links work!

Also, don't apply for "Junior" positions unless it's in direct reply to an advert that's advertising as a "Junior" position. No need to put yourself down.

snow

Sorry Talon as per my first post, I'm in the process of updating it.

Rens

Like Talon said,

Keep these points in mind for next time,
cause it is a repeating thing you do,

- Overdoing the presentation with a bright bloom effect
- The way your uv's are placed is nice, but they need more room between them.
- Give stone a bit more color, it does not feel natural but more towards concrete.

Nice work man.

Fomori

Nice work, nice site! :thumbup:
Best of luck landing a job. Might be a lot of competition in Australia though....

ajr2764

You have a very nice collection of work to show, been following your thread for the Brooklyn building, one of my favorites. Your site is simple and straight to the art which is good, I do feel like it could have a little more going on with the design. Modeling looks very clean and strong texturing. I meant to ask in the brooklyn thread, how do you create that borderlands look with your work?

Looks like your in a good position to start applying based on what I see.

EMC3D

Really nice stuff dude, I think you went a bit crazy on the polygons for the pallet and hydrant seeing as they'll only take up a fraction of the screen in game, but that's just a nitpick. Rest is awesome.

Would also consider putting a cube-map on your windows so they don't look plastic.

Farfarer

snow wrote: »

Sorry Talon as per my first post, I'm in the process of updating it.

My bad, I should've read your post properly :P

The site's looking good, by the way. I like the clean, no-fuss approach.

If I was to nit-pick;
Don't put the word resume up in zip file. It's another of those small "one extra step" things, you want to keep those to a minimum - a link to the .doc is fine.

For the same screen space as your 4 vertical shots, you could probably put 4 full landscape shots of your objects. It's a little bit "mystery meat" navigation at the moment - I'd much prefer to have a clear idea of what I'm about to click on rather than an ambiguous cropped part of the full image.

By the way, I think you should put up some shots of the high res Locust SMG. If I remember the thread correctly, the high poly looked really solid, I think folk/employers would benefit from seeing it.

jeremiah_bigley

maybe it is just me but I don't think you should have a model in your portfolio that was done from a tutorial...

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3d-studio-max/model-a-detailed-high-poly-fire-hydrant-in-3ds-max/

chrisradsby

That's some great work man, you'll be fine Look for junior environment artist and environment artists roles.

Jeff Parrott

Great work and nice portfolio site. Only crit would be larger thumbnails to see what I'm gonna want to click on.

snow

Thanks everyone. I really haven't been too confident with my content, however I feel I've been doing 3d for such a long while at home now and believe its time to test the waters as I'm getting a bit restless wanting some actual work experience. It's great to hear some nice comments.

Rens - I'll make those modifications where possible.
Fomori - Thanks, and I'm sure competition is very strong here, but that's what I'm about to find out!
ajr2764 - The borderlands style is achieved simply by ticking outline in marmoset, sometimes it can be a bit dominant in unwanted areas, so if need take a screenshot with and without an outline, and you can mask the outline away.
Mr Bear - the hydrant and the pallet are pretty high, I guess some pieces I just pushed as far as possible to make them look as best as possible for my portfolio (possibly too far?)
Talon - haha no worries. Thanks I'll remove the .zip. I did originally have them horizontal but it meant you had to scroll down, whereas I wanted everything on the screen at first glance. I can put change it again and see how it looks if you're definite about it :P You're also very right that I should add the high poly of my SMG, will do that asap!!
jeremiah_bigley - isn't that what a hydrant looks like? I see your point, but I'd assume tutorial or not, I'd hope by most things on my page they're aware I can model a hydrant without a tutorial.
chrisradsby - Thanks means a lot.
jeffro - Yeah I get you, the thumbnails are supposed to be teasers, it seems I might need to revisit them.

Razgriz

I like the site design - it's clear and inviting, clean, and simple. I think the changes you made make it even better, although for environments, I've always found horizontal thumbnails to be more appropriate for environment artists, and vertical for character artists. This obviously isn't an unchangeable rule, but like others said, you can't get a good feel for the piece you're clicking on.

On the fire hydrant, I don't think you should have any problems keeping it in - it's a generic enough prop and an obscure enough tutorial I don't think anyone would really connect the two. It's not like the glut of damaged pillars I see that are clearly from the Eat3d dvd; although I would say that to have a strong environment artist portfolio, you want to get rid of singular props (unless their beyond amazing) and spend time putting together 3-4 great environments that have awesome props in them. When I see single props I think "filler", because that hydrant should be a part of a street scene. That's the exact case with my own portfolio, which I'm working on changing by the end of the year.

Altogether, though, really strong site. Best of luck with the job hunt.

snow

Thanks Razgriz.

In regards to creating more environments, I completely understand, as from here on that's all I will be creating. Previously, I really just wanted to get my head around being able to create all varieties of props to a solid standard, and not jump the gun as such and create a whole scene of OK props without having the skills to make one decent one, if that makes sense?

I'll adjust the main page to display horizontal images later today and see what people think.

Thanks.

Delerium

I would turn down/tweak the SSAO on the Brooklyn building, it ruins it how the way it is set up now. Besides from that it looks very good!

snow

I found that once I took a high res screenshot from UDK using tiledshot 4, the SSAO really became much more crisp and obvious than in the viewport. I'll revisit it, thanks!

EMC3D

Be wary that tiledshot kills off post-processing which can be a pain, just incase you run into any issues in the future with it.

Yeah I think the pallet has had a bit too much love in terms of the micro bevels you have on it, but It's a portfolio piece after all! Would really like to have an insight to your organic workflow for the stone and grass and stuff like that if you have time, Snow.

Rojo

Looks good man.

snow

Mr Bear - Ah I wasn't aware it was a port process killer, thanks. Oh and emind me in a week and I can do a tutorial for you, once all my resumes have been shot out.

Rojo - Thanks.

ScoobyDoofus

Hey Tim! Long time no-talk! This is Ryan. If you recall I was going to work on Primal Carnage, but needed money more immediately than they could offer. Your work has come a long way and you've put together some really nice work. I think in terms of environment work, it'd now e nice to see more of a fully fleshed out environment that tells a story of some kind. Demonstrate even some scripting work, and you'll be a shoe-in!

SinisterUrge

@ScoobyDoofus: Bit of advice, avoid working on that game unless you want to be treated like crap and a slave.

@snow: can't fault your work, but adding something like a high res vehicle would help to show you can do that as well. Also, not all companies advertise for places so apply to all of them.

The LOTR scene is too monochromatic, but that's easy to fix.

Hayden Zammit

I love the hand painted props you did.

Good luck trying to land a job. I'm in Australia, too, and it sucks how hard the industry has been suffering over here.

Lennyagony

The website looks excellent Snow, great quality all around. Although to reiterate a few of the above posts, the climate in the Australian industry is pretty tragic at the moment, so you may find it extremely difficult to land a position through no fault of your own.

snow

Thanks guys, the lack of job opportunities are concerning, I would be looking to work internationally if I failed to pickup work in the next 6 months, but I'm not sure what the job situation is like in other countries either.

Slight update, I've made a quick example menu page with horizontal images as per some of your suggestions: http://timmcleod.net/index_landscape.html

As far as my original www.timmcleod.net , I've added a screenshot of my high poly SMG, I've also toned down the SSAO on the building screenshots.

Also added my resume which may need a look at. For some reason the .doc resume keeps trying to be opened as a .zip, anyone know how to fix this?

Jbird

Very nice stuff Snow, I'm also thinking about doing some lo-poly stuff with painted textures to show some variety. Anyhow keep up the good work and good luck with the job hunting, be persistent.

ParoXum

snow wrote: »

Thanks both of you.

I'm just not sure when I contact companies that don't display any hiring opportunities (hence I have no title to work off), whether to put in my cover letter that I'm applying for the position of junior or not - if that makes sense.

Sometimes you'll be contacted for 2+ years experience job offers even when you dont have those years. And in that case it can be a fit.

You definitely have the level for a junior artist.

That being said, maybe the LOTR scene is the weakest of all, where individually the assets look good, but the map itself feels rushed.