Game Art Portfolio

[nathanielbell]

Nice stuff, The one on the top is my most fav :buttrock:

[Firelark]

Fantastic stuff Yeluis. There is something about gameart that looks so good.

[BMunchausen]

I think the lighting on the little cottage could be stronger. it's kind of default-blah right now and it's such a nice model, it deserves to be lit better. Nice work!

[void808]

Pretty good stuff, man. The Elino building by far stand out as the most finely crafted bit of modelling/texturing in your portfolio.

A few suggestions--take them or leave them:

Engine Room: Alot of the visual detail you have in your scene is kinda far away from the camera. If you could focus more micro detail into the engines at ground level, instead of the pipes, rivets, etc on the ceiling, you'd get more "wowy" results. I assume it's a FPS sort of design, so why not put the detail right around where the player's eyes are.

Orgenton's Gorge: I love the stylized, cartoony feel, but the renders you have up on the stills section of the portfolio don't show off what I know is there. Try a different angle showing more of the two buildings...maybe more of a front on shot of the two of them. Just generally work on framing both stills a little better. Cool stuff.

Aztec Temple: Great model, nice texture. I'd love to see something breaking up the sky in the shot however, just to balance out the overall shot. Maybe clouds, a tree, a dead, hanging mayan...whatever

NY Street: I generally don't like putting WIP, unlit work in my portfolio if I'm shopping for game industry work. It's cool to have wireframes and maybe a "process" section showing how you got from a concept piece to finished artwork, but placing an unfinished, unlit street section always worries me. If you're planning on finishing this--I encourage you. It's a good start, and if you put the detail and texture love into it like you did Elino--look out world.

El Nivel -O: It's a good idea to get a good variety of styles into your portfolio to show as an artist how versatile you are, and Sci-Fi was something you definately were missing in here, but I suggest you either create a specific set of Elino-quality buildings/assets, or remove this one entirely. The geometry seems like it's an cool start, but the texturing lacks an overall cohesion, and the engine lighting is coming off way too hot. I think people are really going to get WOW'ed by the Elino building, then see something like this, and wonder if it was an accident. YOU know it isn't, I know it isn't, but that's just my general observation after sitting in on countless portfolio reviews.

You definately have some great stuff in here, man. This portfolio reads definately like you're doing nothing but getting better each time you take on a project.

Thumbs up!

-S

[Toxic Frog]

Great work!
The first piece (Elino) is the strongest, IMO.

But, since you come here for crits, I'd like to offer some:

The reel is far too long. There isn't enough content to justify 2 1/2 minutes, and it gets boring rather quickly, even though the content is strong.
So here are my suggestions:

1. The intro screen (contact info) is too long. Make it 4 seconds max, and have a longer screen at the end of the reel.

2. Spin the elino model more slowly. Right now, it spins too fast to really appreciate the details. Don't make the rendered shot any longer, though - you don't need to see every possible angle. Focus on the best angle and rotate more slowly

3. All the segments that show the render passes (wireframe, specular, normal, etc) are WAY too long. Cut them down by at least half (I'd suggest even more). Right now, we see the Elino rendered for about 6 seconds, but we see the gray version for 20 seconds. Which looks better - the grey one or the textured one? Obviously, the textured one is more impressive and demonstrates your work more accurately. Also, fade back into the textured version for 4 seconds or so before going on to the next piece. Leave the viewer remembering the textured model rather than the grey one.

4. Engine room - same as above. Shorten the grey bits and fade back into rendered at the end. Also, I'd make the camera loop rather than playing the same forward motion every time. It's very jarring.

5. Mosque - Same crits as the engine room.

6. Old West Unreal - This is nice, but in my opinion you should drop the isolated models entirely. They just don't look good on their own, without proper lighting, etc. The scene looks great, let it stand on its own. If you want to show off the individual buildings, capture footage from the scene that focuses on the buildings.

The last 2 scenes are fine - no crits.

Don't be afraid to cut an entire 60 seconds from your reel. 1 1/2 minutes is perfectly fine with this amount of content. You'd rather the viewer be left wanting more than feeling bored with a bunch of grey models.

These are just my opinions, based on making several environmental reels of my own and getting the same kind of feedback from friends. I cut my last reel down from 4 minutes to 1 1/2, and it was a lot better for it.

Hope this helps!

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