Would like some 100% honest but constructive criticism on my models

Ravanex · May 2020

I started learning 3D in March 2019 in a "school". It was nowehere near an university tbh. It was only 2 days a week for 3-4 hours so not much really but it was enough to learn the basics and even some more. However I think it's not enough for a job. My teachers were people who work in the game industry (one modeller and one texture/concept artist) and they told me that my models look good so maybe I'm not completly hopeless.

The textures were made by me using Substance Painter smart materials and masks and some smart materials I've downloaded but all of them was tweaked so I didn't just put them on.

Königstiger

https://imgur.com/a/VFnVP7S

It was one of my models for the school final exam. My teachers liked it, actually they said that my models are one of the best in the class. I'm not completly satisfied with it, it looked way better in my head but I guess that's how it is most of the time if you do art

Also it's just a low poly model so no baked textures from highpoly.

Old alarmclock

https://imgur.com/a/gdfmp3P

I made this around the beginning of the school, it was just a simple assigment. Only low poly, no highpoly.

Old TV

https://imgur.com/a/bi81oeC

Also a school assigment, this time for mid-term. The teacher really like it, I got the best grade for it.

Modern/Sci-fi Revolver

https://imgur.com/a/UC52qIY

I'm currently working on this one, it's only the high poly model I haven't started the low poly yet. The topology is pretty weird somewhere I know, especially around the holes in the barrel but this is the best I could do without visible problems on the model

This will be the first time I'll try to bake highpoly to lowpoly.

I'd like the hear every constructive feedback be it positive or negative! If you think my models are complete garbage then feel free to tell me! Just include an explanation please so I can learn from it.

My goal is to work on AAA games as an Environment/Prop artist (I don't really know which one yet, the only certain thing is that I don't want to make characters) so I'm always comparing my work to AAA models which is a horrible thing I know because I sometimes lose motivation, there are so many beautiful models on Artstation.

carvuliero · May 2020

Whats this school business just one year and thats all ? Can you continue working with this guys ? Have you ask any of them if they are willing to mentor you thats as they already know you

You haven't bake maps yet in this case I think you know the answer of you question .Until you learn whole process -> pipeline concept to game ready model nobody will hire you and that just bare minimum then your models have to look half decent How decent you can check here https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2724444#Comment_2724444.

I suggest you pick a simple object could be anything and use that to learn the pipeline,something like this thing :

http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/thumb/5/5f/OrbCrasher_crate.jpg/800px-OrbCrasher_crate.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/68/1c/f8681c23cb499268874c5b42897cdb90.jpg

Also I notice that you use ortho views to model your stuff and in reality there will be rarely such luxury most often you will get 3/4 front and back if you are lucky rest you have to fill yourself so learn to work from concept art or from non orth images .Guys at environment challenge are doing great stuff and always have inspiring concepts to work from[even I want to jump sometimes and do some environment work which i cant say the same for character challenge ] so it will be a good place to learn[osmosis is powerful thing ] and practice

https://polycount.com/discussion/219364/the-bi-monthly-environment-art-challenge-may-june-66#latest

also there is this thing if you want your ass kicked

https://polycount.com/discussion/132146/week-40-the-weekly-hard-surface-challenge#latest

One more thing subject matter is important when you pick pieces for your portfolio right now you have boring objects that have been done billion times so pick interesting object that you can tell a story with [just open one of virtual museums and you found sea of incredible stuff and more importantly nobody have them in their portfolios ]

Brian "Panda" Choi · May 2020

This is from a cursory look from the models.

I have questions that you need to answer if you want to be working on a production team for games.

1) Can you texture these items to a production quality level?
2) Can you make bakeable high poly models?
3) Can you render these in a game engine?

BohSheh · May 2020

Art aspect will be told later , lets tackle whats more important first.

I think its even faster to ask directly from your lecturer .
Instead of asking does it looks good , ask how you bring it to another level .
Remember , your lecturer is your closest people in getting you into the industry . I had friend that struggle from getting a position as a animator , but got recommended from my lecturer instead ( though is in Japan ) .

First of all , why environment ? I seen many people wants to do props just because it looks "easier" than making character .
I was once told , as long you can model characters , you can model props , thats where things get tricky .
There are millions of better artist in the world , and why should a studio hire you ? Therefore its better to sort out why you wants to work for environment . They are not hiring machine just to make assets , they are hiring people .

Each studio , different industry has different expectation on portfolio , therefore , you should adapt to their requirement . Such as smaller studio expect you to have a bigger sets of skills to juggle different job , whereas bigger studio are more towards specialization .

****
Back to the art side , I can see you can definitely model things , but not optimized enough . Can you texture without the help of smart material ? Are your UV optimized enough? Do you know the basic pipeline from start to the end? Different games requires different type of model and texturing , but this still not convincing enough for a AAA studio .

Old clock(The only thing I will judge because it looks completed to me)
Small area uses too much polygon , too round than it should be . Balance the roundness between small and big shapes , even if it has to break a cleaner topology , because the smaller shapes is gonna make the bigger shapes looks edgy .
It just seems like dirt mask being place everywhere . Do you have multiple photo reference ?
I think its interesting if you can do different type of clock , new clock , used clock , old clock .

****

I think getting into the industry should be your priority than aiming for a AAA directly . You can always work your way up , but you are just gonna stuck forever if you cant even get a job in the industry .

If you are aiming environment , I hope to see not just props , but more actual environment scene , using game engine that you preferred .
By the way 2d artwork are definitely welcomed in your portfolio !! Goodluck

teodar23 · May 2020

I'm inclined to say that you are half way there. You need to do a lot more models, and go through the whole process. Why a lot? You are at the point that only some of them will be good enough for a portfolio. I'm not going to talk about your models because they are not there. No pbr, no baking, no proper presentation. Do the work, hit all the problems, overcome them, get faster and maybe then youll have a chance.

Ravanex · May 2020

carvuliero said:

Whats this school business just one year and thats all ? Can you continue working with this guys ? Have you ask any of them if they are willing to mentor you thats as they already know you

You haven't bake maps yet in this case I think you know the answer of you question .Until you learn whole process -> pipeline concept to game ready model nobody will hire you and that just bare minimum then your models have to look half decent How decent you can check here https://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2724444#Comment_2724444.
I suggest you pick a simple object could be anything and use that to learn the pipeline,something like this thing :
http://wiki.polycount.com/w/images/thumb/5/5f/OrbCrasher_crate.jpg/800px-OrbCrasher_crate.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f8/68/1c/f8681c23cb499268874c5b42897cdb90.jpg

Also I notice that you use ortho views to model your stuff and in reality there will be rarely such luxury most often you will get 3/4 front and back if you are lucky rest you have to fill yourself so learn to work from concept art or from non orth images .Guys at environment challenge are doing great stuff and always have inspiring concepts to work from[even I want to jump sometimes and do some environment work which i cant say the same for character challenge ] so it will be a good place to learn[osmosis is powerful thing ] and practice
https://polycount.com/discussion/219364/the-bi-monthly-environment-art-challenge-may-june-66#latest
also there is this thing if you want your ass kicked
https://polycount.com/discussion/132146/week-40-the-weekly-hard-surface-challenge#latest

One more thing subject matter is important when you pick pieces for your portfolio right now you have boring objects that have been done billion times so pick interesting object that you can tell a story with [just open one of virtual museums and you found sea of incredible stuff and more importantly nobody have them in their portfolios ]

We have a thing here called National Register of Vocational Qualifications (I live in Hungary). This sounds something serious but basically it's just something you can do after high school graduation. There are "training centers" which can apply for this and when you finish one you get a kind of "diploma" however it's nowhere near an University. There are different types of courses you can take like cooking, carpentry, plumber, accountant, programmer, etc. In 3D Art no one cares about my "diploma" as far as I know so basically I just did this course to see what's 3D like. It was way cheaper than an university so if I didn't like it I wouldn't waste a lot of money. But I'm liking it so far so here I am. I don't think there's an university for 3D modelling here though.

I finished this school in January. I haven't talked to them since then so I think it would be a little weird to just ask them to mentor me for free. They work in game developer studios+they are teaching in that school too so I think the last thing they want to do is to mentor someone

I don't use orthographic view or what do you mean? I only used images from all sides for the Königstiger. I have only a side picture of the revolver and I had only a front view of the TV. Anyway I'm trying to work from concept art it's just hard to find one which is not too easy but not too hard. I'm trying to do hard ones of course but I think I'm not on a level to try something really complicated like a space station.

Those challenges look interesting I might try to do them sometime

These models are not for my portfolio (maybe the Revolver once it's completed). I wouldn't put these in my portfolio, I know they are not very good

Ravanex · May 2020

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

This is from a cursory look from the models.

I have questions that you need to answer if you want to be working on a production team for games.

1) Can you texture these items to a production quality level?
2) Can you make bakeable high poly models?
3) Can you render these in a game engine?

1, I'm want to learn Substance Designer, I heard from someone who works at CD Project Red that nowadays they make almost every texture in Designer except a few ones like human skin. I guess other AAA studios do the same.

2, I'm learning that right now, I made a stylizied flash grenade and the baking worked well but when I tried to bake the Revolver it didn't turned out so good. Should I bake high poly in 3DS Max or in Substance Painter or it doesn't matter?

3, Not yet but I'll download UE4 or Unity (or both) and get familiar with it.

Ravanex · May 2020

BohSheh said:

Art aspect will be told later , lets tackle whats more important first.

I think its even faster to ask directly from your lecturer .
Instead of asking does it looks good , ask how you bring it to another level .
Remember , your lecturer is your closest people in getting you into the industry . I had friend that struggle from getting a position as a animator , but got recommended from my lecturer instead ( though is in Japan ) .

First of all , why environment ? I seen many people wants to do props just because it looks "easier" than making character .
I was once told , as long you can model characters , you can model props , thats where things get tricky .
There are millions of better artist in the world , and why should a studio hire you ? Therefore its better to sort out why you wants to work for environment . They are not hiring machine just to make assets , they are hiring people .

Each studio , different industry has different expectation on portfolio , therefore , you should adapt to their requirement . Such as smaller studio expect you to have a bigger sets of skills to juggle different job , whereas bigger studio are more towards specialization .

****
Back to the art side , I can see you can definitely model things , but not optimized enough . Can you texture without the help of smart material ? Are your UV optimized enough? Do you know the basic pipeline from start to the end? Different games requires different type of model and texturing , but this still not convincing enough for a AAA studio .

Old clock(The only thing I will judge because it looks completed to me)
Small area uses too much polygon , too round than it should be . Balance the roundness between small and big shapes , even if it has to break a cleaner topology , because the smaller shapes is gonna make the bigger shapes looks edgy .
It just seems like dirt mask being place everywhere . Do you have multiple photo reference ?
I think its interesting if you can do different type of clock , new clock , used clock , old clock .

****

I think getting into the industry should be your priority than aiming for a AAA directly . You can always work your way up , but you are just gonna stuck forever if you cant even get a job in the industry .

If you are aiming environment , I hope to see not just props , but more actual environment scene , using game engine that you preferred .
By the way 2d artwork are definitely welcomed in your portfolio !! Goodluck

I finished that school in January and I haven't talked to them since then. If you'd like some more information on this read my comment above.

The only thing I don't want to model is characters. While sculpting looks fun I don't want to learn anatomy. I will need to sculpt on high poly models anyway so my desire to sculpting will be satisfied with those.

I was thinking about making only props too that's why I have single models. Since it's the most easiest (I think?). I thought that an Environment artist only does the props for the environment then someone else (like a Level Designer, is there even a job like this?) puts them together for the game. Now I see that Environment artists make the whole environment.

Why Environment? I realized that I've always loved looking at beautiful environments in games and even in real life. I love cozy villages, mountains, post apocalyptic cities etc. I can always get lost in games looking at the scenery.

I know they are not optimised enough my topology needs a lot of work. I only used smart materials (and put some mask on it etc.) until now but I want to learn Substance Designer, it seems that everyone use that nowadays for most of the textures. Honestly I hate UV. Mostly because of 3DS Max. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or the UV thing in Max is horrible but sometimes it screws up even the simplest objects. Also the edges are almost never fully straight. Back in school my teacher showed us UVing in Blender and it looked so much better everything was perfectly straight for the first time.

I kind of know the pipeline:- you get the concept art - using that you first make the high poly(or low poly) model - then you make the low poly(or high poly) - you make the UV of the low poly model - if it's not a complicated model you just put the low poly and highpoly inside each other and bake the high poly's details on the low poly, if it's a complicated model you take it apart as many pieces as needed and basically bake every one of them separately then put together the result - after this you can texture it, I still have to learn what happens after this, like importing it into the engine but it shouldn't be too hard I guess?

I made that clock around the beginning of the school (so around June 2019 or something like that), I wouldn't put so many polygons in it now.

Obviously my goal is to get into the industry not straight to AAA sorry if it wasn't clear. It just my main goal to work on AAA games. There are not many AAA game developers around here anyway (at least not the big ones). The two biggest are Neocore Games (the texture/concept artist teacher works here) and Gameloft. Here is a list of the game developer studios https://hungame.blog/fejleszto-cegek/

It's in hungarian but you don't have to understand anything just click on them and you'll see the games they made. Első játék means First game and Legutóbbi játék means Last game.

Sure I'll make some actual environments, I just have to find some nice concept art first. I can't really draw in 2D.

Brian "Panda" Choi · May 2020

Ravanex said:

Brian "Panda" Choi said:

This is from a cursory look from the models.

I have questions that you need to answer if you want to be working on a production team for games.

1) Can you texture these items to a production quality level?
2) Can you make bakeable high poly models?
3) Can you render these in a game engine?

1, I'm want to learn Substance Designer, I heard from someone who works at CD Project Red that nowadays they make almost every texture in Designer except a few ones like human skin. I guess other AAA studios do the same.

2, I'm learning that right now, I made a stylizied flash grenade and the baking worked well but when I tried to bake the Revolver it didn't turned out so good. Should I bake high poly in 3DS Max or in Substance Painter or it doesn't matter?

3, Not yet but I'll download UE4 or Unity (or both) and get familiar with it.

1. Ok. Get some Susbtances done in Designer then. Present it how others have done it.
2. In my opinion, no. You'll find it varies for w.e technical reasons. I like toolbag given the cage fixing you can paint in or out. Substance Painter lacks a visual baker still for w.e reason. Are you baking via "explodeed pieces?'
3. Cool.

Would like some 100% honest but constructive criticism on my models

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