get rid of that super white background, also yea like the others have said those thumnails are unreadable. some clear concise rectangular thumbs would be a lot better. the work itself looks pretty good man.
Your meshes look pretty neat.
But looks like textures and materials have issues though.
environments:
1) swamp scene has texel density issue. Ground is too low res compared to the rest of textures.
Fire and smoke not working. They r too harsh, smoke is strangely white and fire looks like stars.
Maybe just replace it with oil lamp or something like that.
Foliage texture is too simple and needs work.
2) sci-fi facilities - glows r overused. Hard to actually see actual environment and textures because of strong and frequent glows. It is easy to put glow everywhere, but they hide your work from viewer Glows don't impress, as to me they r not good sign if thrown just randomly evetywhere like that.
props:
1) bus's texture looks off. Wheels feel pumped like a swimming pool ring.
Front of the bus lacks engine grid. Contrast between rust and paint is too harsh. That leaking rust thing looks too contrasted.
Boards and flags covering windows look wierd. Some times it is hard to see if there is some glass or no. Some dark low-res interior would be way better.
Btw, if that bus would be so old and not used it's tires would be empty
Too much photoshop bevel emboss. I stay away from those even over painting it myself. It always looks fake. Also try to avoid doing everything with a quick brush pass. It takes longer but a once over with a small brush and some color for scratches does a lot for realism.
You have some good stuff but the site is letting it down.
Get rid of the circular thumbs and replace them with something bigger that give a better preview at what where looking at. I found i really hard to recognize what some things where by just looking at the thumbs, making it a game of trail and error clicking.
Not a fan of lightbox either but that mealy my opinion.
Add more breakdown shot of the environments like: Texture sheets, wireframe shots, lighting shots and triangle counts.
I want to click on your images and be taken to a page with them on it. I want the ability to middle-click and open them in new tabs. Instead, I'm forced to wait for the slow-as-shit viewer to open up and do its little animation before I can look at the stuff on your website.
The first time I tried to open an image and had to wait for the viewer to open up, I almost left the site out of annoyance. The only reason I stayed was because you were looking for feedback and I felt obligated. That's a really bad sign.
You have some pretty nice pieces, the terminator bike is pretty sweet. The website is really killing your portfolio right now. I agree about the buttons, make them bigger and rectangular or square so people know what they are clicking on. I would just have the home page open to big thumbs of all your best pieces. I would also ditch the light box asap, it takes forever to load on slower connections and can get old real quick. One little nitpick I saw on the bus was that the steps looked really shiny and clean while the rest of the bus looked more weathered. Other than those few things, I think you have a pretty solid portfolio.
This might be redundant after what everyone has said, but what is the point of putting your maps up there, if we can't zoom in to see them? You have some really good work on there (although, I think that bike would have a problem with the ammo cartridges hitting the ground, getting caught on things, etc.), but it would be better to have images that can be magnified, so you can see more of what you have done.
i agree with the lightbox stuff. i dont like it at all.
also, you`re resume is brutal. research resumes and fix it. the second page only has 2 lines on it! thats a HUUGE no no. and the layout is just bad.
all in all, the problems you have are good problems. easy problems to fix. the work you have is good, so you just gotta fix the presentation. now get to it!
From what I can tell it looks like you have changed a lot of things since you first made this thread, and from what I see today as far as your website goes its pretty good. Lightbox is the devil though, it looks cool and fancy and I originally was going to use it, then I realized with a dedicated html page to the project I can put more images up, and I dont have to fit them into one image that has to pop up in lightbox. The bigger your renders are the better.
Also your lighting is really good in your environments, but your still shots look really dark, I think some of that is coming from your textures too. You can loose a lot of detail by not having enough contrast, and muddying things. I noticed this in your motorcycle, when I saw the thumbnail I didnt think it had too many details, then I was surprised when I saw the highpoly. You need play with your lighting and try some things with your textures so you can really show off the details.
great update to the layout and thumbnails, also the start of some really nice work in there.
seconded on the resume and lightboxes though. my computer is a beast and for some reason they lag ffox for me first load. that and I hate them.
so again, updated layout is excellent.. oh and rework that dagger/knife thing, it's too washed out with the high spec and your metal base is way too noisy (even if it is supposed to look worn).
The new site layout is much, much better! But, the ALL CAPS typography on your Resume page bugs me, it's really hard to read. It has some strange formatting as well (don't indent bullet points! ), and it probably shouldn't be a JPEG as I'm seeing a lot of compression artifacts and it's a 120kb image that's not needed.
EDIT: One more thing, you might want to change your resume download file name to something like "Jaxon Keller 3D Artist Resume.doc". I downloaded it to take a look, and I lost it among the many other "resume.doc" files that I've downloaded, and you probably wouldn't want a potential employer to do that.
pretty nice stuff. one thing that jumped out at me was the insane amount of grunge on everything. it starts to make a lot of it look stylized. you have really "burned in" grungy bits like around the doorframe on the bus. mainly its too grungy and contrasty. but i dont know if youre going for realism or not.
Replies
But looks like textures and materials have issues though.
environments:
1) swamp scene has texel density issue. Ground is too low res compared to the rest of textures.
Fire and smoke not working. They r too harsh, smoke is strangely white and fire looks like stars.
Maybe just replace it with oil lamp or something like that.
Foliage texture is too simple and needs work.
2) sci-fi facilities - glows r overused. Hard to actually see actual environment and textures because of strong and frequent glows. It is easy to put glow everywhere, but they hide your work from viewer
props:
1) bus's texture looks off. Wheels feel pumped like a swimming pool ring.
Front of the bus lacks engine grid. Contrast between rust and paint is too harsh. That leaking rust thing looks too contrasted.
Boards and flags covering windows look wierd. Some times it is hard to see if there is some glass or no. Some dark low-res interior would be way better.
Btw, if that bus would be so old and not used it's tires would be empty
Get rid of the circular thumbs and replace them with something bigger that give a better preview at what where looking at. I found i really hard to recognize what some things where by just looking at the thumbs, making it a game of trail and error clicking.
Not a fan of lightbox either but that mealy my opinion.
Add more breakdown shot of the environments like: Texture sheets, wireframe shots, lighting shots and triangle counts.
FUCKING.
HATE.
LIGHTBOX.
I want to click on your images and be taken to a page with them on it. I want the ability to middle-click and open them in new tabs. Instead, I'm forced to wait for the slow-as-shit viewer to open up and do its little animation before I can look at the stuff on your website.
The first time I tried to open an image and had to wait for the viewer to open up, I almost left the site out of annoyance. The only reason I stayed was because you were looking for feedback and I felt obligated. That's a really bad sign.
i agree with the lightbox stuff. i dont like it at all.
also, you`re resume is brutal. research resumes and fix it. the second page only has 2 lines on it! thats a HUUGE no no. and the layout is just bad.
all in all, the problems you have are good problems. easy problems to fix. the work you have is good, so you just gotta fix the presentation. now get to it!
Also your lighting is really good in your environments, but your still shots look really dark, I think some of that is coming from your textures too. You can loose a lot of detail by not having enough contrast, and muddying things. I noticed this in your motorcycle, when I saw the thumbnail I didnt think it had too many details, then I was surprised when I saw the highpoly. You need play with your lighting and try some things with your textures so you can really show off the details.
seconded on the resume and lightboxes though. my computer is a beast and for some reason they lag ffox for me first load. that and I hate them.
so again, updated layout is excellent.. oh and rework that dagger/knife thing, it's too washed out with the high spec and your metal base is way too noisy (even if it is supposed to look worn).
EDIT: One more thing, you might want to change your resume download file name to something like "Jaxon Keller 3D Artist Resume.doc". I downloaded it to take a look, and I lost it among the many other "resume.doc" files that I've downloaded, and you probably wouldn't want a potential employer to do that.