Would Like Some Feedback on my Portfolio.
polycounter lvl 3
Hello, I'm an aspiring 3D modeler, specifically an aspiring prop/weapons modeler, and I would like some feedback on how I'm presenting my models on my portfolio if that's ok. Rendering the models and presenting them has always been a bit of a challenge for me. I'm not sure exactly what information I should include in my renders. Any kind of feedback would be appreciated.
Replies
The quality of your portfolio is all over the place. When you're an entry artist you shouldn't have any WIPs in there, which includes unfinished work. You're only as strong as your weakest piece is something commonly said here.
Art that looks like it took a day to make also shouldn't be in your portfolio, or "first modeled/textured asset". The French tank and robot girl could have been really good if you had finished them/textured them with bakes/lp. Don't have simple stuff in your portfolio. Unless you're an art god working at some AAA company, it detracts from the rest of your art.
The Davinci tank was interesting, but the texturing/UVs are really poor, due to using a unique texture map. You need to either use tiling or trim textures to get by with large assets. Your m4 is your best piece which just kills the rest of your art, but the thumbnail could be better. You can't see what's going on. I would have used pic 5 or 6 as per below edit. You have a hat in your portfolio, character artists would be making that.
Looking at your polycount, you haven't posted any artwork here for critique, which would allow you to get input and improve. Some obvious things stand out to me, like the fact you don't have any pixel padding on your shells/normal maps, which is super important for mips. Some UV shells are rotated for no clear reason, you will get aliasing along edges in your normal map. Keep shells straight unless it has big natural curvature. You might want to look at more efficient uv mapping, you have too many shells for some things that should of been stitched together. You also have wavy normal maps on your m4 and topology that doesn't make sense. Like an unneeded amount of sides on the sling adapters compared to the holes on the front rail.
You might want to consider doing full environments too as Ashervisalis mentioned, so you can put props in it and present a scene that looks like you have the know-how and effort to make it. Weapons alone are a niche category in a niche industry, so making full environments makes you more employable if you also want to do props. If you wanna be hirable you need to have quality work, that could look like it would fit in a 2020 game. Check out https://www.artstation.com/kierangoodson/blog/yGMy/job-winning-environment-art-of-2019
Just because you make a piece doesn't mean it belongs in your portfolio. Assess your art critically as if you were an employer looking for the best artist for the job. Don't be afraid to get rid of artwork in your portfolio that you think wouldn't fit in a 2020 game right now.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Edge_padding
https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/1764477/#Comment_1764477
https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2332412/#Comment_2332412
^ any post you can find from Earthquake is a good one.