[Portfolio] Environmental / Props Advice

Bearded_Man

Hi guys,

Well I have been searching for a suitable place in order to receive some constructive help, guidance and feedback regarding my portfolio. I hoped by making a post here may prove to be a good start J

As you may be able to gather after looking at my site I have set my sights on environmental game assets, this is where I believe my greatest passion and skill sets lie.

Although as of yet I do not have a vast variation of work to present and I am aware that my portfolio is far from finished, I hoped that I might have just enough pieces for feedback and also advice on what type of work I could include. Overall hopefully with my site you may be able to gauge if I am working in the right direction or not.

As like most out there I am working hard towards becoming a junior environmental artist and I hope that by using this post and critique from it, it shall better my chances to landing suitable interviews for the future.

http://glynnrichards.carbonmade.com/

Thanks again for your advice and comments it’s a great help.

Cheers

Glynn[/COLOR]

CrackRockSteady

The first thing I would say, if you are aiming to be a 3d environment artist, I would nix the 2d level, and possibly also the TF2 map. The 2d game doesn't showcase the skills you would be using in your desired position, and the TF2 map only shows that you can populate a level with pre existing assets. I would say take some of your own work and create a small level in Source, that way you can showcase your 3d work as well as show that you know your way around level building in the engine.

The Market Stand and the Shack look decent, but I would say for sure tone down the SSAA in the UDK shots for both, you are getting really ugly black halos around everything. There also seem to be a lot of unnecessary polys in the Market Stand props, particularly the barrel and the cloth awning for the stand. The metal bands on the barrel could probably be done entirely with the normal map, in the UDK shot they don't seem to affect the silhuette of the object at all.

The Apache is pretty cool but I think it needs a lot of work. A number of parts of the model don't match what I'm seeing from my image search. I'd say gather as much reference as you can from every angle and really try to match all the body shapes. The material could use some work as well, it doesn't really read as metal (or painted metal) very well.

The middle east scene has a lot of potential, but it needs love also. You did a good job populating the scene with all manner of debris and signage, but the end result looks very busy and some of the textures look really low res (ground texture for example). Take a look at some screenshots from something like Modern Warfare and really study how they did everything.

You definitely seem to know what you are doing, I would say the key now is just keep practicing, keep making assets and small environments and coming here for crits and advice.

Bearded_Man

Hey CrackRock,

Cheers for the comments as it’s a great help. Polycount Game crit forums seem to be much busy than the CG society one too

Can I ask what you mean by SSAA in UDK? if you know a way to get rid of the noisey black outlines I would love to know.

Thanks again
Glynn

CrackRockSteady

SSAA (screen space ambient occlusion) is what is causing the black outlines around everything. For some reason the default setting in UDK is really heavy with the SSAA, so you'll need to edit (If i remember correctly) the post process chain in UDK. I can't remember exactly where it is right now, maybe someone else can chime in, otherwise I can check for sure when I get home. Or do a google search for Post Process Chain UDK, you can probably find more about all the settings there.

Computron

SSAO (Screen Space Ambient Occlusion) not SSAA (Super Sample Anti Aliasing).

Custom Real-time Ambient Occlusion

CrackRockSteady

haha thank you Computron I am retarded today.

Bearded_Man

Hey guys, thanks for clearing that up it was really anoying not knowing whats causing it.

Cheers
Glynn

Matroskin

I think it is quite good portfolio for a graduate.
Images are clear enouugh and have good breakdowns.

My major art-related comment tho is that u could think of using more tiled/re-usable textures instead of huge unique one, like u did for the middle-east bldg. The unique texture sheet for the whole house is a huge overkill

SouthpawSid

Agreed. more tiling textures than entire building mapped out, and ditch the 2d stuff. It's cool, but maybe have a blog where you can have your other stuff not related to your direct environment and prop art.

also, I would display EVERYTHING in some sort of game engine. no max or maya renders.

Maybe try and throw your middle eastern street into UDK or something. Keep going, plenty of potential!

Bearded_Man

Hey Guys,
Cheers for the crits Iam taking them onboard

My War torn street scene was the actualy the earliest piece just finishing Uni. I Guess I didnt know anything about engines then so I thought about making it the best
I could with Max. As for Making tile textures instead of massive UVs , I understand much clearer now of the pipline taken in assets and level creation and hope to review this soon.

Cheers guys!