UE4 Samurai Character | Looking for feedback
This is my first time posting on here so please let me know if I'm doing something wrong. This is a portfolio piece I made over the past month and a half. All rendered in UE4. I made as much as I could from scratch the exceptions being the mouth, eyes, and base skin shader which were modified from the Digital Human project.
I recently graduated and I'm looking for some feedback, so feel free to destroy it or simply some things you'd like to see added.
For more pics and a couple of videos check out my ArtStation post.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5XBaG8
Replies
Since you asked - A few things i can say that this piece is lacking though is that lighting needs works. right now its really hard to appreciate the form and silhouette of your character, while the black background is masking everything else the light doesn't touch.
Next is texturing. the skin seems spot on (and mouth looks incredible). The armour however looks too clean and shiny, some areas I cannot tell what kind of material it is (from a distance it looks like plastic) Observation on type of materials you use and how to portray it in 3D can be challenging but it makes a massive difference. I suggest you practice using susbtance painter and just use the preset materials there. (or even create simple props using it) and eventually you get a good grasp of on how to portray textures and materials in your renders. (I think your sword render is stronger than the armour)
Lastly don't post all your renders (i know it sounds daft) but sometimes less is more. Just use your strongest pieces, otherwise the not so strong ones stick out like a sore thumb. You want your viewers to scroll less, so If you want to to show off all sides of your character you would need to fit it in 1 or 2 pages. right now there is a lot of negative space (which it isnt necessarily bad if used effectively) which could have been used for something else (maybe a super close up of the armour?) so yeah image composition is an unspoken but important rule. If you want to show a single body shot without wasting space.. then your crop tool is your best friend
1 super last thing - get to know your camera field of view, the close of render of the face looks odd. I tend to use 30 for head shot, 35 - 40 waist up and 40 - 50 full body, depending on what im going for. It helps portray your character's proportions correctly
hope this helps
Some thoughts on the presentation (for a game character):
I think it's important to have turn around shots of the full character, so all angles can be evaluated. Honestly, whenever I see presentations obscuring parts of the character, I get curious what the artist is trying to hide
I'd also include high-poly, neutral pose character with baked normal map, wire-frames, uv-layout/texture, possibly references used?
Why not show that all aspects of production are understood?
Some deformation, especially in the clips, look weird. I'd say if skinning is too much, might be better to tweak vertices manually and present the character in a static pose.
Regarding the character, I think it could use more polish overall. Especially the lower part looks not so fleshed out (trousers, especially folds, shin guards, feet) and the face looks very smooth and bit flat (more wrinkles, surface details?).
I suggest taking more time for a project of this scale, or splitting it up into sub projects so you still feel like making progress, without spreading your attention too thin.
Hope you get some use out of this - keep it up