Portfolio - Crits Requested
polycounter lvl 13
denmarkgibbs.designbinder.com
I am starting my first semester of grad school for Game Desgin (art focus) and I want to start looking for internship/co-ops soon (like tomorrow). I would really appreciate any feedback to help me have the best shot at any game art positions.
I realize that there is actually not a lot of art on my portfolio, but I hope to change that in the near future. I will aslo be updating my resume asap, since I have graduated since my last update.
There is already a separate thread for the Warhawk, but more advice is already welcome.
I promise my feelings will not be hurt, I honestly appreciate any and all help.
Thanks!
I am starting my first semester of grad school for Game Desgin (art focus) and I want to start looking for internship/co-ops soon (like tomorrow). I would really appreciate any feedback to help me have the best shot at any game art positions.
I realize that there is actually not a lot of art on my portfolio, but I hope to change that in the near future. I will aslo be updating my resume asap, since I have graduated since my last update.
There is already a separate thread for the Warhawk, but more advice is already welcome.
I promise my feelings will not be hurt, I honestly appreciate any and all help.
Thanks!
Replies
Remove the Bio. Any information about you that the employer could care about is in your resume. I don't think that having a picture of yourself is a good idea...even if they don't mean to, people will judge you based on your physical appearance...and you only want to be judged based on your resume and sample work. Also, you have BroncoLand and Rocky horror listed...which are also in your resume, and the link to BroncoLand doesn't work. Just have a resume page instead.
As for your work, its confusing that you have a seperate tab for personal projects. Even thought you did the BroncoLand project and Rocky horror project for the school, I probably wouldn't separate them out like that.
For BroncoLand project, you have the high poly golf cart...was this ever finished? Same with the bus? Unfinished work isn't a good thing to show. Sometimes you can get away with just a high poly model of something, if its completely badass. The buildings bricks are too big, and the way your texture is laid out for the brick wall/window section is wasteful. The texture just tiles repeatedly anyways.
For Rocky Horror, I see no benefit to having all that geometry in your wireframe, as image on the right shows absolutely no silhouette. It is barely possible to see the difference between it and a perfectly straight cube. If you aren't popping geometry out with those extra tris, then get rid of them.
Traditional Artwork, you can probably lose this section. Your stuff looks ok, but unless your an ungodly awesome drawer/painter, it isn't worth showing off.
Personal Projects, not much to say about the warhawk...as again..it isn't finished.
Overall, you definitely need new/better work...but as you said, you already know that. I'm not the biggest fan of your layout...I much prefer to have thumbnail images on the main page that send me to the different projects instead of a navigation tab. It allows a person looking at your work to focus straight on the eye candy instead of having to think about where to go.
you are guilty of every mistake. Remake and move on!
Your portfolio layout is awkward and hides your art, and the content needs to be significantly improved. You need more finished, game-ready work, with a larger focus on game-ready assets using proper practices - your campus buildings should have been built with tiling textures, you shouldn't be using auto-reduction on that stone pillar, and you should ensure you have reasonable polycounts on all in-game objects. You need to work on your material definition and texturing skills, and you would benefit from having more complex 3d models.
Also it's already been linked, but Jon Jones' article above is really important.
First and foremost thank you for all your help, it is greatly appreciated. i apologize for the broken link, didn't realize the links didn't work.
The extra information and picture in the Bio section is now gone, there is just the resume download (which I will update shortly). I also completely removed the link for BroncoLand although the site is still active here: www.wmich.edu/broncoland
As far as the (former) broncoland models: the golf cart was finished, but the low poly version was a collaboration, and the final textures were not done by me. I only wanted to keep work in my portfolio that was completely done by me. Similarly with the bus, that was the final model, but the textures were not done by me, so I only included the model. the textures on the valley buildings were done that way because I had to try and keep the whole building below a certain count, but maintain the look of the real building (quite frankly I didn't know how to do it any other way).
I ditched the pillar completely. The traditional section too.
One thing I did fail to mention from the begining, my site is hosted through DeviantArt, and so the layout cannot be changed very much from what it is (and I really wouldnt' know how to change it if they did allow full customization). If you know of any faily inexspensive hosts, and of some where I can learn to build a site, I'll def make the changes to simplify the site.
Again, thanks for everything, I greatly appreciate the help.
I do plan on starting over eventually, but right now it's hosted through DeviantArt, so I can't change a lot of the things that Jon Jones talks about. Do you know of any cheap host sites? And I don't know how to create web pages, so I'd have to learn that before I make the move too.
Thanks again for the help, I do appreciate it (and I bookmarked the link to Jon Jones article)
Thanks for the advice, I appreciate the honesty.
As far as the layout, as I said before, it can't really be helped. I removed the pillar, as well as the campus building (which I did not know how to use tiling textures without either increasing the polygon count, wich I don't think I could really afford to do as the building was already 5K triangles (possibly more).
I understand my texturing needs (a lot) of work, but I'm not really sure What you mean by material definition? Also, what would constitute a more complex 3d model?
Again, thanks for the help
Your jeep was a good start, but more complex models like that would be useful - lots of parts. Try to avoid concepts that are mostly boxes as well - a sports car, some guns, etc would be good.
I think this image of an M16A1 shows off the kind of complex shape interactions you should be demonstrating in your portfolio - it has a number of curved and straight shape interactions:
As far as material definition, right now all of your materials do not read well. You should sit down and do some material studies. I don't think this is necessarily the best example of these materials or the idea spectrum (especially as an environment artist - you'd want concrete and dirt and brick and stuff), but basically doing a lot of studies like this:
Go out into the world (and I'm serious, don't look at photos, find a bright day and walk around outside, as the changing angle and the interaction with light while you're moving is what sells the 'read' of a material) and examine various materials around you, and then go home and try to recreate them. Use photos as needed to supplement reference and to help build materials, but look to duplicate real world materials. These are sufficiently quick that you should be able to do one or two a night and build up both a library of tiles you can use in environments, as well as rapidly iterate and improve on your understanding of the materials.
In summary, you need to do two different exercises - complex shape studies, and complex material studies. You don't need to focus on finished pieces for studies (ie, not a full gun/car/whatever, but the parts that are difficult and interesting), just on learning how to execute on them.
Then, once you've learned those skills, set out to make a full portfolio piece with them. Don't mix learning and portfolio, you wind up with a portfolio full of mistakes.
e: for hosting I use bounceweb.com, they're $80 for 2 years but I believe I have unlimited bandwidth and they have a ton of tools for site management, e-mail, etc, and their customer support has been awesome.
On a non-portfolio note, Join the IGDA Detroit Chapter. They usually have meetings every month, or at least every other month they go to a bar somewhere near Metro Detroit and just hang out and network. You can meet local indie developers, and some people who work for the various indie game companies within MI. There aren't many, but I have met a few.
I graduate this upcoming Spring and will be entering the job hunting market. Good Luck to you man.
Wow a lot of good info. Thanks again, really appreciate it. I took your suggestion, I'm starting a car thread is here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1513058#post1513058
I will try do the texture studies this weekend, when I have more time, I'll start a thread for those too.
Bounceweb sounds like a good deal, I'll set up a new domain in the next few weeks.
Thanks again
Oh man, I wish I knew about that sooner. I actually just moved out to San Francisco for Grad School. When I'm back in the area, I will definitely look up the IGDA. Thanks for the heads up and best of luck to you too
I use it, and I personally find that it's the easiest, best portfolio building website out there. It works extremely well everywhere; I mean even on Smartphones, tablets, ANY web browser. It's fantastic.
You can also mask your domain name too using carbonmade, which will look much more professional. Using something like blahblah.weebly.com etc etc is not as pretty....but to be honest, the art on your page is much more important than a web address >D
Thanks I appreciate the response.
I'd actually taken a look on that site before, but I don't think that I'm going to go that route, because one of the major problems I have now is that the site I'm using, uses a template style set up that creates splash pages, hides the art, etc. If I'm wrong and that site would allow me to build the kind of page I need without a template, I'll definitely take another look.