Portfolio thread
polycounter lvl 7
Hello all,
I've been an active browser on this forum on a daily basis and made here and there a few posts as well but now its time I make my own thread like most people do and post some of my work. At this moment I'm working on 4 assignments for my university, all 3D related.
I'm splitting my time between making my first UDK level during which I've realised that I aboslutely love making nature sceneries, I also have an animation assignment where I'm making a 10 second scene from the movie The Great Dictator, the globe scene. I also have to produce a 10 second 3d render movie which I'm making of the same animation scene, thus I can have a nice surround for my animation, last but not least I have a rigging assignment which turns out to be the least and first topic of 3D that I don't enjoy at all.
I'll post more of my works as I progress with them, mostly what I've been showing on my portfolio site (which I would appreciate if I could get some feedback for) is my UDK level in the blog section.
http://www.stenrooslauri.com/
I have a lot to improve on so don't shoot me down completely, I still have about 20 days left to do all my assignments so a breakdown at this point would be bad
I've been an active browser on this forum on a daily basis and made here and there a few posts as well but now its time I make my own thread like most people do and post some of my work. At this moment I'm working on 4 assignments for my university, all 3D related.
I'm splitting my time between making my first UDK level during which I've realised that I aboslutely love making nature sceneries, I also have an animation assignment where I'm making a 10 second scene from the movie The Great Dictator, the globe scene. I also have to produce a 10 second 3d render movie which I'm making of the same animation scene, thus I can have a nice surround for my animation, last but not least I have a rigging assignment which turns out to be the least and first topic of 3D that I don't enjoy at all.
I'll post more of my works as I progress with them, mostly what I've been showing on my portfolio site (which I would appreciate if I could get some feedback for) is my UDK level in the blog section.
http://www.stenrooslauri.com/
I have a lot to improve on so don't shoot me down completely, I still have about 20 days left to do all my assignments so a breakdown at this point would be bad
Replies
- I'd like to see triangle counts (in the pictures or descriptions) and wireframes for all the projects.
- I would also want some contact information and a legible name on all images.
- I want to see the highpolys for most assets in the scene (if there are none, you should mention that).
- Also don't post stuff that isn't finished (temple scene, you wrote that it's going into UDK soon, post it after you're finished). WIP stuff makes it look like you don't finish your stuff.
- The temple scene needs way more color variation as everything is a shade of green right now (e.g brown dirt floor, brown grunge on the walls, maybe some red or yellow flowers and some colored motif on one or more walls).
- Tbh I'd skip the temple scene though as it's the worst of your pieces in my opinion (models with bad smoothing and mostly noise textures) and abandoned temples such as that one are way overdone.
- The truck could use some color variation as well with maybe a differently colored cover in the back and some stronger brown hues from the dirt.
- Remove the old version of the truck as it doesn't really help with anything.
- The gun looks nice. It could use some wear and dirt but otherwise I like it.
- I'd like to see the whole blacksmith scene if you ever finished it otherwise I'd probably throw it out or at least change the description to reflect on this.
- The site itself looks pretty functional but basic. I'd change the font for the top menu as it doesn't match the body and looks out of place.
- Also why can't I right I rightclick and save your images? This is one of the most important features on a portfolio so why do so many people disable it?
Seems that my portfolios provider has put a image protection on all the images of all their clients on by default and no option to turn this off. I've sent them an email to request them to take it off and to add it as a feature for their next update. Having paid for the site for a year I hope that this is an option soon, otherwise starting to regret making my deal with this portfolio provider
Thanks again for the honest feedback!
[ame="
Moving on to where I am on my 3d production assignment. I have to make a 10sec realistic movie, timelapse or realtime render of a scenery. To combine my animation assignment into this I chose to model the same scenery as I have chosen in my animation. When the scene is done I'm going to add it as a background to my animation as well. This scene needs a lot more work thoug as I've only began working on it. Modeling is done in Max but will move it into Maya for rendering purposes.
Then last but not least my first UDK project. I have to make a 1 vs 1 deathmatch map. We are allowed to use UDKs stock assets to make the level, though a minimum of 20% of the assets have to be made by ourselves. Making a level out of assets that arent yours doesn't really mean much to me so I'm designing and making the level entirely myself without using a single stock asset from UDK. Heres a few shots of my current progress.
Feedback is welcome and appreciated. I'm not an expert in any of these, only been working with Maya for animation and rendering as well as UDK for only 3 months now.
Your actual assets could have a much stronger silhouette as well. It looks like you just made a few basic primitive shapes and slapped a flat diffuse texture on it. Judging from your website it looks like you know how to bake a high poly model onto a low poly model, so why not do that here as well?
If you're interested in level design or even environment artwork you might want to check out www.worldofleveldesign.com/ if you haven't already. There's some great stuff there.
It's cool that you're branching out and learning new things. I'd try and find something you really like doing and strive to become the best at it. You will get much better if you can find what you love doing and really focus on that area instead of spreading yourself out too thin.
Best of luck!
My personal advice to you, having just graduated from school and exiting with a job is to do your class work well enough to get by. Then outside of class, day and night, really focus on what you want to do. Find ways to get the most out of your education. Focus your time and energy in doing things that will help out in the long run because good grades wont. Unless you plan to teach at a university in which case prepare for grad school.
For example if I were you I wouldn't bother trying to make an entire map from scratch. Focus on what the assignment is about. In this case its about creating a fun, interesting arena map with few additional assets, 20% as you said.
So if you are serious about becoming a designer, really make the level fun, using lots of bsp and basic geometry. Spend less time making the unique assets because its not the area of focus you are shooting for.
If you are serious about getting a job as an environment artist, really make those few assets shine. You will not have time to make all the assets for this map look really good, and you can not expect yourself to since you are new to the field.
Creating a map like that for a game involves a team of people bringing it to polish. Creating an area that size and having it up to industry standard is very hard. Trust me I have tried and failed due to time constraints and my own abilities.
My best results have come from creating a few polished assets in maybe a small scene. The plus to this is that as a newbie you can be proud of them because they look awesome and they attract attention. People like Tor Frick and Vincent Mayeur are the exception to the rule, but don't worry as I am sure that they have sold there soul to some game art god devil or something.
I only have uni for half a year more, after that I'm to try and find my place in the industry. I am very inspired by nature and I would really like to go towards the role of enviromental arts. Wish I had more time at this point so that I could really polish out that level through and through but as my time is running out ( I have about 20 days left ) I'm forced to just add the rest of the content into my level quickly.
I'm trying out something I found on poly wiki about vertex normals and transfering normal attributes in Maya, seeing as I have access to both Max and Maya at this point while I'mstill enlisted as a student in Uni. Hopefully this will give my foliage a better look.
As for the buildings, they indeed are lowpoly and not using anything but a diffuse map containing a tileable rock, wood and roof texture in one map. I still plan to do tileable sculpts in mudbox to replace those materials in the texturesheet, though time is heavily against me.
After these exams I have a few more courses left, the rest of the year will be easier in content so I might have more time to polish this level afterwards.
I agree with Toxic_h2o. If you're going to spend time polishing a piece do it on a future portfolio piece you really care about. So after this assignment, I would just leave this piece alone, unless you really want to revisit it.
The shading on the updated vegetation is looking much better.
I wish I knew what was causing issues in your level after re-importing the assets. I really have no idea though. You might find a quick answer from somebody if you start a new thread in the Technical section asking about the issue.
Best of luck!