Modeling Portfolio Feedback
I am currently tuning up my personal portfolio for my MFA classes in preparation for for mid point review. I am seeking constructive and professional critiques. Please make comments on any aspect of the project, modeling, lighting, texture, etc. I'm looking to present this in a better way both with lighting and presentation. Open, Honest feedback is important to me. Thanks, Mike
This is my own concept, I started with the Back-hoe and then changed it into a Scorpion, it's fully rigged and still a work in progress.
Replies
I am currently tuning up my personal portfolio for my MFA classes in preparation for for mid point review. I am seeking constructive and professional critiques. Please make comments on any aspect of the project, modeling, lighting, texture, etc. I'm looking to present this in a better way both with lighting and presentation. Open, Honest feedback is important to me. Thanks, Mike
Put this scene together after some inspiration from Skyrim and Dragon Age. The poly count is around 18,000 polys excluding the place holder stock trees. Each building is set up with 2-2048x2048 maps and the props are all on 1-2048x2048.
-Ryan
Here is a bigger picture for those who were looking for the details.
Since it is already rigged it would be great to see it moving in UDK or Unity as well.
The scorpion piece is cool. I do think your shots spend time looking at it from a distance. I'd be more interested in getting a closer look at all time and work you put into making it functional and seeing detail where it would really be.
Might be cool to give more of a story to the detail now. I've noticed a lot of bulldozers over time start to get more wear-and-tear near the bottom where rocks and dirt are rubbing and flying up.
Scratches on and under where the blade scrapes to lift up objects on the front edge.
The rust and grime where the hydraulics leak oil.
Dust and dirt the in the crevice of overlapping parts.
A lot of the metal parts are a clean looking silver/white- Might be cool to see these be a bit warmer with rust and more dirt on them.
While all that seems useless from a distance, again would be cool to see that detail but then more up-close and also giving us a chance to see the functionality you put into the parts.
Would also be interested in seeing how this would look in something like Marmoset Toolbag instead of Mental Ray. That or Maya's Viewport 2.0 with DX11 Shaders with some simple lights. It could probably help give it a more next-gen look.
For some reason the lighting in the front Bulldozer/Scorpion shot looks flat compared to the back shot. It's as if your AO get's blown out by this light coming from the left.
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The Skyrim village is cool at first glance.
But psychologically something is off. I personally feel it's the proportion. It feels like these would be homes for Dwarves or Smurfs. Maybe it's that the details feel too thick or beefy for what they really are. Perhaps we could try thinning the diamond window detail as well as the window detail on the second building.
Though they're placeholders the scaling of the leaves on the distant trees seem to also be contributing to the proportion issue I'm noticing. For being in the distance their details seem larger than they'd really be in real life.
The handrails also feel pretty thick width wise.
Maybe what's off is the trickery you're (at least seems to be) using to give off depth. For some reason the proportions of the tile floor seem larger than how they'd really be if they were really as far as they should. Maybe it's the boxes in the foreground looking as though they're scaled large or something, can't pin-point it.
Would be nice to also get some warmer tones happening in this scene to ease out of this desaturated blue that's going on. Maybe with some torches or even turning on the lamp you have already placed (but kind of hard to see at the moment).
Some atmosphere/fog would help in giving depth to the scene and helping us realize we're outside and also helping give that post rain type feel.
Hope this all helped!
-Aaron Jessie
One other thing I noticed from coworker reaction was that the water almost didn't come off as water. A couple of guys thought it was like a crack in the ground or like a large step (I never really realized it til they said it).
Maybe if the puddle was broken up some in interesting pockets instead of being one long puddle, just to help break it up and also help emphasize the fact that it's water.
More color variance from tile to tile and brick to brick.
You are already doing that but maybe you can push it a little more.
Ripples on the water caused by either rain or wind would break up the puddle, or you could turn the puddle into a shallow yet swift moving stream running down the middle of the street.
Lights in the windows and lamps would help to give life to the scene, making it seem less like a model.
The signs also don't have to be vertical. In even a light wind those sorts of signs tend to swing a few degrees.
I think the main thing that gives the impression that the buildings are squat is the dimension of the doors. Doors are usually twice as tall as they are wide; with the brownish wall around the doors they appear almost square. Narrowing the doors and changing the surrounding wall would help. Each level should be 10-12 feet tall (3 - 3.6m), and each room should be 8-10 feet high (2.4 - 3m), although things might be a bit more cramped in older buildings.
Doors with windows have traditionally been very uncommon - glass being both expensive and an easy entry point for thieves. At the very least they'd have bars or a wooden shutter behind the glass like the door above.
Overall, this are feels like a prosperous shopping district of a fairly major city rather than a small village.