A Medieval Demo Reel

Benjie · Jun 2006

Hey so this is how it came to be in the end.

just ignore my awsome webpage graphics and click on the demo reel button.

it is in flash so flash is mandatory to view it.

Oh lol I am posting this to get some feedback from the posters of polycount. Every Crit and Comment is appreciated and will be taken into consideration.

With that said, there are a few obvious bad moves on my part. When you watch - the flyby of the houses is a little close and a little dark/flat since I picked the wrong side of the street to do such camera work. I also know the scene in general is a little flat, and my lighting needs work.

Thanks.

EDIT: Sorry I had to take it down since the whole bandwidth limit issue, lol. I will add some screenshots here in place of my link. sorry

jonnyhr · Jun 2006

This is looking very nice. Now, I can't say I'm much of an expert on this subject but it did look quite nice to me. I did notice the things you pointed out yourself though, and I would perhaps even suggest redoing some part cause of it, this being a demo reel. Anyway, keep it up

FunkaDelicDass · Jun 2006

First of all, I don't know if a flash file is the best way to present a reel. I'd recommend sticking with qucktime, divx, etc.

Your reel is too long for just one scene. Some of the flythrough shots with the sunset lighting are nice, but the flyby shots of the wireframes are too long and boring. Wires are best viewed as jpegs, where people can analyze your work at their own pace. I'd also recommend putting your textures up as viewable jpegs on your site, as the video compression adds in too much noise to really judge how good your texture skills are.

cholden · Jun 2006

Looks pretty good, Benji. Well presented overall, but you may want to cut some of the intro to get right to it.

Couple quick things:

The tree that is centered and rotated around is more like a background tree than a centerpiece. Id expect this tree to be large, thick, with wild roots and crazy limbs (lots more detail) huge fantasy tree.

The houses are so perfect, 90 degree with no wear or dilapidation. If the construction was more distorted and collapsing, itd appear more believable as an old medieval village.

Minus the other little things you mentioned, a non-flash option could be helpful as well. I remember you pimping this gear before, the final product is nice, and best of luck with it.

aesir · Jun 2006

hrmmm, I watched it and Im having a hard time phrasing my critiques of it. The biggest problem with it is that nothing was really particularly impressive. The majority of the reel showed of modeling, while solid, was also pretty simple. The textures were fairly bland and uninteresting. Its not that you did a bad job on them, its just that you seemed like you didnt put any love into them either. Its the really small details that really makes an environment come alive, and while you seemed to have handled all the major landmarks (building, street, a few barrels), I think you missed out on a lot of opportunities to make it interesting. This could be anything from vines crawling up a house (which would give some much needed variation in your pallete) to a building that has clearly begun to decay and erode in certain areas.

Take this piece as an example: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/anmkevin/AbandonedStation.jpg

It would be incredibly boring if you simply created that enviro as a plane train station. However, he made it very interesting. Theres cracks in the sidewalks. Grass is growing is haphazardly growing in different spots and its died out in others. A plant is climbing up the pillar. The sign is slightly askew. Every little detail gives it character.

Another thing, everything is on a completely flat plane. You have a lot of opportunities to play with your enviornment, and give it rolling hills, curving street corners, stairways up to a slightly higher level where a building is. Anything you want. Everything you did is extremely planar and uninteresting. Contrast that with an enviro like this, http://www.rhemrev.com/mountainvillage-final.jpg or this http://www.rhemrev.com/snowvillage-final.jpg

I think you need to think about things like, what mood you were trying to attain in this town? What pallete of colors am I using? Where am I trying to create strong contrast? Where is my focal point? Where should the viewer be looking? What is the story behind what I've created? Who lives here? What is its purpose? etc.

Right now you have a reel that might be able to get you a entry level position somewhere. It clearly shows that you know what you're doing. What I'd like is to see you take it a bit further

Striff · Jun 2006

Ditch the Flash and go with AVI or something, the quality of Flash just isn't good enough if you are trying to impress.

The audio cuts in and out a little bit, but I don't know if that is just my machine or what.

Benjie · Jun 2006

Hey everyone thanks for the crits and comments.

I do have a quicktime file and i was going to put it up on my site but I dont have a lot of room and the file is 414mb so I need to make it smaller or go with a different host. I completly agree with what everyone said especially aesir, I wanted to give more life and death into the scene with the organics, and time. But due to time constraints from school I had to have it finished for a portfolio show. I plan to use what all of you have said and add to the scene.

Oh yes and I was also thinking of changing the way i present the houses as others have mentioned.

Thanks everyone

danr · Jun 2006

bandwidth exceeded ... harumph

if you do go with a non-flash vid, 414mb is far too big for a showreel. You could divx that down to a fraction of the size

A Medieval Demo Reel

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