Portfolio Review - Recent Graduate
polycounter lvl 6
Hello, everyone. I'm in dire need of critiques on my portfolio. I have TONS of stuff I could put on it, but I'm trying to pull the best pieces and even then, I've gotten rid of quite a bit on my site over the past few months.
I'm applying all over the place for Environment Artist and Level Designer positions. I love modeling so much, I do it for fun when I'm not doing it for school or working on a project.
Any feedback would be hugely appreciated. Please be harsh and respectful.
http://www.robertalvord.com
I'm applying all over the place for Environment Artist and Level Designer positions. I love modeling so much, I do it for fun when I'm not doing it for school or working on a project.
Any feedback would be hugely appreciated. Please be harsh and respectful.
http://www.robertalvord.com
Replies
In the castle scene, the light from the fires is too yellow and static. This link is to a tutorial on changing the color of a light in UDK, but it should give you a general idea about creating a flickering firelight [ame="
The walls and floor seem to have the same texture in the first scene. They really should be distinct textures, with the walls as distinct layers of blocks and the floor as flagstones.
The 3D models seem rather inefficient, with a high polycount and over-sized textures. Drop the object into the engine, and then try reducing the texture size; I'd be willing to bet that you can go to 512 or possibly even 256 without losing anything. The same is also true of the mesh - you can probably lose around half the polygons while maintaining the shapes.
Your axe video is currently AWOL. I personally find the axe too fat (probably weighing in at 20 pounds or instead of the 3-5 for a real axe), but that's mostly a matter of taste. Warhammer and WoW have certainly popularized over-sized weapons and armor.
The textures overall could use some work. The normal map on the wood floor feels very flat, while the specular color should be the inverse of the diffuse color for accurate specular highlights.
Hey. Thanks for the feedback! I've been thinking a lot about making the portfolio page my default, so we pretty much agree on that.
I know how to setup that first video scene better, and frankly, it wasn't apparently communicating what I was trying to convey. It was a simple scene using UDK assets to put my texture on the walls, floor an ceiling. I think I just need to redo it to show off the texture alone, so people don't confuse it for a messy throw-together environment.
The textures are over-sized, in order to ensure high-fidelity...knowing that I can reduce them later, but I do hear what you're saying. The meshes might need work in some cases, but I had a hard time getting the normals to bake properly without enough fidelity in the meshes to capture certain areas on some models. The shield is an exception and probably needs to be redone.
I was redoing the axe video when you were looking at it, but for now I've taken it down. I agree that the axe is a bit fat, especially near the center of the head. I did flatten out the blades more and extended the stem to the handle. I'll go in and thin out the head a bit, as well.
Funny thing. I thought the same about the wood floor, as you did. At least this all tells me one very important thing. My gut is likely right, and I should follow it on this one.
You've been of great assistance, and I thank you, again for your time and feedback and the link.
In the title it says that you're an Environment Artist, but to be honest, you're just showing two really small and very simple environments.. It seems that you're more focused on making individual props. I'd definitely say, that you should work on the medieval scenery (lighting seems off to me, textures need a lot of work -> wear and tear - normalmaps etc.). Your second environment, the children room, also seems very flat and may appear quite boring due to the unspectacular lighting.
Besides these facts, I agree with DWalker. You homepage is way too complex, busy and confusing. Leave out the "home" category and put the portfolio page instead. Rework your "resume" page, for my personal taste, it's way too busy at the moment. I'd say, on this page, tell everyone your core skills and experience (which is important for your career in the games industry).
Of course your art needs some more work, but i like the overall quality
Spend some more time on making these environments, think about the lighting etc. and simplify your homepage!
Keep going
Great feedback! These are the types of comments I need. The biggest challenge I have on the experience side is job-related industry experience, as I have had no luck with anyone hiring. I'm sure the changes I make to my site will help here.
But I think a lot of companies want their Environment Artists to model and texture on the one hand, and to intensive work with their engine (lighting and also shader-setup) on the other hand.
Since I live in Germany it's quite hard for me to get a job (since there aren't as much companies as in US or UK), especially in the town i live.. So take your time and take your Portfolio to the next level
Leaving no impression at all is better than a bad one..
Also is there anyway to make the images bigger? it was hard to tell what I was looking in a lot of cases, particularly the environments.
Edit- Im an idiot. I was only looking at the home page, i didn't see the "portfolio" link. that solves the size issue lol.
"Leaving no impression at all is better than a bad one.." <-- wise words
@Mrpopo,
Yeah. This is why I think the consensus, even for me, is to get rid of the home page.
Are there any pieces you would definitely say are keepers, that may still need a bit of work?
Is the order of assets working for me or against me?
You could keep (with some tips for improvement):
- The shield: it's too flat -> work on the specular map, diffuse (damage, wear etc.) and normal map (get the details in there)
- The wooden thing with the rope: it has a kinda strange and noisy normal map, you should work on the specular map and it has way too much polygons at the moment!
- The Axe: it's OK, but you should play more with the material definition (specularmap, most parts read like stone atm), maybe some color variation could help.
- The windmill: the texture is hard to notice, kind reads like the standard material in 3dsmax -> variation, dirt, wear and tear, specular map and normal map is needed!
I would definitely get rid of the rest.
In general I would say, that you should work on your material definition (learn differences between the materials and how to achieve them, also shaderwise).
Also, start working on a whole environment, but a small one
Maybe pick a concept you like and start learning during the process..
Keep going and good luck!
EDIT: You could also leave the stone texture video for now
http://engravingglossary.com/ provides some very nice images.
I'd remove the rings from the weapon's haft; they'd just get in the way when the warrior shifts his grip. If you want to add visual interest to this area, consider making using overlapping leather thongs similar to the following image:
Hey. Yeah I thought of using references for the runes, but what I find is that artowrk in games all tends to look the same. I was going for something different, but I definitely get what you're saying. Your input about the grip makes total sense. Thanks!
The thing I hate is that your images are not clickable. I would like to be able to hover over, click, and get a nice full size image. With your site I have to right-click view image, and then when I click back, it restarts the flash animation to frame one, so I have to figure out which was the last pictures I clicked, 1,2,3,4, or 5.
Go with a layout that has each item next to each other so I can just sift through it and come back to the "directory" of images to scroll and view larger if I wish.
For the enchanted great axe, take the white triangle engravings on the axe copy/paste to a new photoshop layer, blur and add over your image. I feel like those would be glowing, and post process is fine because that is the same process a game engine will do by taking an emmissive/glow map.
I took me a while to figure out what the column with ropes was (I didnt read the title). The problem with this is your texture scale is so far off. The wood texture is zoomed on it, it makes the thing look like a tiny tiny wood block to sit on my desk. You need to tile that wood. Just count the grain lines in it and then look at a 2x4 (which has more grain lines than that). Basically your wood is mapped to a texture that is about 1x2 inches, but its supposed to be a 10 foot piece of wood.
The tile stone environment, scrap and start over. Try looking at uncharted levels inside of tombs. The brick is way too black in the creases (is that baked occlussion because its way too black). Is there normal mapping on the bricks? You should try also putting in parallax shader if it is available. The room is too dark. I'm sure UDK has to support flicker lights instead of the non-flickering fire lights you have. If that were real fire that room would be way less dark than it is. I mention uncharted because those environments have life, items in them, they aren't just flat, even putting some wavy-ness to the floor to show its sitting on top of unstable dirt would be a ton more interesting, maybe some popped out bricks on the floor and cut out of the wall.