Portfolio review - Engage!
Hey Polycount ladies and gents,
After a long time with no updates, I finally have a new portfolio site! Yay! Some of you may recognize some of the pieces on here, which have since been greatly improved over the last couple of weeks. Most of it is pretty old stuff, as I am unable to show images of the last game I worked on. But now that I am for the most part satisfied with the improvements done here, I can finally move on to a new piece! In the mean time, please critique away
http://meshray.carbonmade.com
After a long time with no updates, I finally have a new portfolio site! Yay! Some of you may recognize some of the pieces on here, which have since been greatly improved over the last couple of weeks. Most of it is pretty old stuff, as I am unable to show images of the last game I worked on. But now that I am for the most part satisfied with the improvements done here, I can finally move on to a new piece! In the mean time, please critique away
http://meshray.carbonmade.com
Replies
- The first thing that I recognize when opening your portfolio is the white sword burning my eyes in whiteness
- overall: You put the descriptions at the bottom of the sites where you show your work. Maybe you consider putting them on the top, so you read the description before viewing. Also overall: I like your presentation style. Good beauty shots followed by informative detail shots and breakdowns. But I surely miss wireframe shots! (!)
- Crash site: I like the environment a lot, the mood is great! Only critique would be, that the trees (especially the one on the left) lacks quality in comparison to the rest of the scene and vegetation. Maybe you can tweak the leaves distribution a little bit more. Besides that, I like the ground vegetation a lot!
On the second screenshot with the closeup of the crash-site the crack in the glass seems a little bit blurry / low res.
- Stoneworks Alleyway: The style is very interesting and pleasing to look at. A desert-like atmosphere is well captured in my opinion (color, dusty air etc.). My only concern would be, that the modeling is very interesting, the textures on the other hand are repeated very often. Maybe you can add some more variety in material definition / texture there. And last the floor on the 3rd picture seems out of scale i.e. too big to me.
Keep it coming, you are heading in the right direction!
Your'e right I should put the textured version of the sword on my front page. And I like the idea of combining the props on one sheet. More wire frames would be good too.
As for your critiques of the Crash site, a lot of the assets on that scene are pretty old, particularly the tree. No doubt it could use some more love!
I wanted the bricks to be large scale on the alleyway scene as I thought that would give it a more unique look. I was trying to make something that is not your typical brick texture. But I think I could have pulled it off a little better. Again most of this stuff is pretty old.
I was planning to just move on from here and start a new environment. But your critiques really make me want to make the most out of these scenes while they're still fresh in my mind. At the same time I really want to get in on the Escape challenge :P I'll have to sleep on it and probably decide tomorrow. Thanks again for your well thought out critiques, Treboras.
Additionally you could use the occasional day off from the challenge to tweak your current pieces a bit with the positive side effect, that you get some distance to the work you do for the challenge and therefore get a fresh eye on it.
And I agree with sipher3325: Don't go shy on font size when it comes to your name and important links!
And last but not least: Your Resume .pdf has a blank 2nd page ... :poly142:
Treboras - That sounds like a plan to me! Could make for a more efficient workflow. I've got all kinds of cool ideas for the escape challenge. Definitely gonna do it all hand painted as well. But more like a realistic hand painted. I feel like my portfolio sorely needs some good hand painted stuff.
The green blotches don't make much sense to me - in a wet environment, I'd accept them as moss, but that doesn't make much sense given the overall desert feel of the scene.
In your crash scene, the cracks in the glass don't look right. Modern safety glass tends to have radial fracture lines, often with concentric rings connecting the lines. Note that this is true even when the glass is broken by something like an axe:
Your resume link seems a bit buried, if I were a potential employer I'd want to get to that right away (after looking at your work of course!) So maybe create a new page with your resume text, or embed the resume on that page, either way, make it easier for someone to find it. You should have some contact information right up front. I know you've got them on the images themselves, but make it ridiculously easy for me to get in contact with you, don't make anybody look for it.
J0NNY- yeah i need to find a better way to implement the resume. I have a link but its easy to miss. Will probably move it to the top of the about page, and see if Carbonmade will let me do some simple html code.
Also, the placement of the "Available for Freelance" image is a bit odd, seemingly attached to the e-mail address. I'm not certain that it's necessary, but at any rate I'd look at similar portfolios to see where others have placed similar icons.
You should also separate your skills/specialties from your tools.
The font used for name, about, etc. is tiny, and the text itself might be unnecessary - each section is pretty much self evident without the heading.
On your to-be-created resume page, include an html or plain-text version of the resume with a link to the pdf. There's nothing in a resume that requires the overhead of a pdf, and properly formatted html just reads better from within a browser.
You should also consider moving the menu onto its own line. This would allow you to have a larger font for the page title, and also allows the menu to expand without crowding the title.
Since you already have a mouse-over event for your projects, consider having a different image or at least a more dramatic border. Some portfolios use a monochrome image for the base, then a fully-colored image when the mouse hovers over the image; others use the same image but with a contrasting border (probably light gray for yours; black just doesn't provide much contrast against a dark grey background).
You can also move the descriptive text into the banner images. This gives you more control over the appearance and also reduces the screen real-estate without reducing the information provided.
Finally, consider replacing your name and title with a banner with that information. This gives you another opportunity to showcase your skills while providing a bit more interest to the page. (Just consider how boring this site would be without its banners.