I'm not a props/environment artist but I think what's letting it down is the lighting/texturing. It's all very 'noisy' to look at.
The thing that is distracting the most is the white lighting coming from the piping. It seems too strong perhaps and is giving the whole scene a blown out look.
Have you experimented with toning it down and adding some ambient lighting to the scene? It might help it look less noisy and easier on the eyes.
You allowed to publicly display this test? i haven't looked into it just helping if you are not thread should be deleted, so you know you can still land the job.(probably too late tbh.) Otherwise neat job, feel the forward facing view has almost blinding brightness ^ voom mentioned it also, i didn't read their post before commenting this so its good to see two strangers see the same thing.
Same as voom i am not a pro prop/environment person so take this with the smallest grainiest of salts. I feel more can be done with the material separations (make each read a bit different so they stand out from one another). That upper area near the ceiling with the lights is very odd to me it goes inward back like a triangle point then forward out. The small brass looking boxes in front of those there are these pipe looking things and they just look tacked on and have no purpose, maybe this is where you might've excelled in adding your own .02's to the concept, if they allowed you to have liberties, simply using the weld brush in zbrush to stick the pipes into might've been enough here. Same area those yard hoes knobs that are in every yard look so tacky and that is probably in the concept art and if its not bad choice, i think an angled knob maybe with some red and labeled might've helped, those also look tacked on.
The front panel, there are these orange blue type button looking things, idk what those are and seem to have no purpose, i am more directing the comments at the concept if this is how it looks, idk if anyone can just take this art-test.
Just nitpicky things like things being tacked on and not feeling like they should be there are my only gripes really. If you wanted harsh i was mild, hopefully it helps though, i also dislike the under lighting, i am confused as to why it looks like a flaming area, if it is, i see no steam to represent the atmosphere in the image, (that white smog on the floor is condensation? dirt? dust?). Guess questions that should have been asked? btw did you ask them anything, i hear usually that is welcomed and wanted to get a better understanding of the tasked asked of you.
Agreed with the concern of posting an art test unless approved.. double check that CI is cool with posting your test. Usually the case is that the applicant was hired and taken aboard, and they post the art test on their portfolio afterwards.
Overall, pretty neat job. I agree that having white lighting against metal/white is a bit much, and loses all of your details. Maybe a cooler light may help?
My largest critique is the use of a unique bake/unique texture for the whole prop. Not only does it make your materials look muddy/blurry since its naturally a large/tall prop, but I'm curious if they specified whether you could/should go for that approach as Star Cit has always spearheaded the use of procedural/tileable workflow on modular assets & props? Imo having a unique unwrap/normal bake additionally sort of defeats the purpose of using a FWN modeling workflow as well.
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I'm not a props/environment artist but I think what's letting it down is the lighting/texturing. It's all very 'noisy' to look at.
The thing that is distracting the most is the white lighting coming from the piping. It seems too strong perhaps and is giving the whole scene a blown out look.
Have you experimented with toning it down and adding some ambient lighting to the scene? It might help it look less noisy and easier on the eyes.
good luck with your test
Otherwise neat job, feel the forward facing view has almost blinding brightness ^ voom mentioned it also, i didn't read their post before commenting this so its good to see two strangers see the same thing.
Same as voom i am not a pro prop/environment person so take this with the smallest grainiest of salts. I feel more can be done with the material separations (make each read a bit different so they stand out from one another). That upper area near the ceiling with the lights is very odd to me it goes inward back like a triangle point then forward out. The small brass looking boxes in front of those there are these pipe looking things and they just look tacked on and have no purpose, maybe this is where you might've excelled in adding your own .02's to the concept, if they allowed you to have liberties, simply using the weld brush in zbrush to stick the pipes into might've been enough here.
Same area those yard hoes knobs that are in every yard look so tacky and that is probably in the concept art and if its not bad choice, i think an angled knob maybe with some red and labeled might've helped, those also look tacked on.
The front panel, there are these orange blue type button looking things, idk what those are and seem to have no purpose, i am more directing the comments at the concept if this is how it looks, idk if anyone can just take this art-test.
Just nitpicky things like things being tacked on and not feeling like they should be there are my only gripes really.
If you wanted harsh i was mild, hopefully it helps though, i also dislike the under lighting, i am confused as to why it looks like a flaming area, if it is, i see no steam to represent the atmosphere in the image, (that white smog on the floor is condensation? dirt? dust?). Guess questions that should have been asked? btw did you ask them anything, i hear usually that is welcomed and wanted to get a better understanding of the tasked asked of you.
Good luck, nice work still.
Overall, pretty neat job. I agree that having white lighting against metal/white is a bit much, and loses all of your details. Maybe a cooler light may help?
My largest critique is the use of a unique bake/unique texture for the whole prop. Not only does it make your materials look muddy/blurry since its naturally a large/tall prop, but I'm curious if they specified whether you could/should go for that approach as Star Cit has always spearheaded the use of procedural/tileable workflow on modular assets & props? Imo having a unique unwrap/normal bake additionally sort of defeats the purpose of using a FWN modeling workflow as well.