3D Portfolio - Work placements

[NikRichards]

Hi Ladies and Gents,

I'm currently A second year student at Teesside university and have started applying for work placements during the summer.

My portfolio is HERE.

Any crits are greats appreciated.

[LLJK-GingerChris]

S'up Sarge.

I'm going to treat this as if you were some random guy of the internet so as to be as impartial as possible, but I know some of the failings may be attributable to the course you're on and what they do/don't teach you.

First up, the good.

The Low Poly Space Fleet, the Swarm Queen, the Mace, the M49 and the Chevy are by far and away my favourite models on there. The Mace is an especially clean modelling job, the Fleet all have highly pretty and distinctive texture-jobs and the M49 shows you really have an eye for detail. You have serious potential for a modeller at the stage of uni you're at.

Unfortunately, there are also crits, so I'll try to be as clear as I can.

- Anything without a texture either needs to be textured or it needs to be removed from your folio. Untextured models in portfolios are a bit of an in-joke among industry types AFAIK. The Deagle and the M79 are decently modelled and show a fair emount of research went into them, but without a texture they're basically unfinished and for a portfolio and I reckon you're better off not including them. You're only as good as your worst piece after all =p

- Your low-poly textured stuff is great, and could land you a job in studios like Jagex right now, but if you're ramping up the polycount for current-gen work, then you need to get into next-gen texturing methods more. This means more normal maps and specular mapping, as well. Normal maps mean you could save a serious amount of polygons on your M49 for example by having the holes in the handguard simply be normal mapped and have the handguard be a simple cylinder. Bammo, coupla thousand polys saved for no real visual difference - might even look better!

EDIT: Hah! I just noticed your Mace is actually normal mapped, that's basically the most advanced model you have right now. At least until you finish that wheelchair you're working on! More like this pls.

Specular maps are textures like your regular colour map which dictate how shiny or dull certain bits of the model are and what colour they will reflect when light hits them. On your mace, you would make the grip area fairly dark and matte while the gold and metal areas reflect more light, simply by brightening those areas on your spec map.



Incidentally, I hear Assyria Games, an Iphone dev based out of the Victoria building in Boro will be hiring in summer and that they keep a staff of grads and placement students, so your best bet might be to try and apply there.

[NikRichards]

Heh, hay Chris

Cheers for the crits, as far as I'm concerned it would be pointless if you only said good things!

For placements I may leave the untextured stuff in (only because some companies have seen it already), but i'll try and phase out the untextured stuff once on top of the coursework.

As for that wheelchair model.... virus attack might of eaten it, stupid mistake.

I'll replace the Trooper soon with the beastman biker (attached), once its fully textured of course!

[LLJK-GingerChris]

Just a quick comment but the shoulders look a little too low, see if you can raise them to about the height of where the button loops on the coat are and you should be good.

[IchII3D]

Your work is coming along ok, but in the time you have had at Teesside University you really should have more work, really start to push yourself and if you want to be confident about getting a job when you finish you really need to go above and beyond what's expected.

Don't wait for the University to teach you, as they most likely will take time or simply not touch on what you want. Go out of your way and do your own thing within the boundaries of your assignments.

I graduated from Teeside last year.

[Cyphris]

I agree with the previous poster (IchII3D), You have to push yourself, I've only been at this about 7 months and I've learned a great deal learning by myself and comparing myself to others all the time. You have to work hard and push yourself, there are a lot of other great artists out there that are also looking for that one position, you have to make sure that your work will shine through.

Right now I'm having trouble feeling confident about my work, especially when you see all the other great portfolios out there. In the fall I might even apply to a 3d-art school, but right now I'm teaching myself everything that I need.

But some of your stuff looks pretty good, I like the swarm queen. But you should probably show off your texture-sheets in there as well.