Portfolios?

[squidinc]

*attachs himself to this thread*

just in case theres some good answers, I too would like to know what people expect :)

[kraal]

here what i know about portfolios mainly from the comic book fantasy illustration field (should still be useful) first of all only your best work.. include nothing that you need to explain,clarify or worse of all justify.....and be honest with your work...place it next to proffesional work and ask yourself can you tell the difference....keep it short if it is a demo reel and the types are not as important as the quality.....poor low poly will hurt you more than no low poly...ect hope that helps

[LucentDreams]

Originally posted by flingster
its a bit of a catch all really...
low poly
character animation
texturing
lighting
examples
what?



Great thread, maybe this one should get a sticky once its going.

Now my input is from what my instructors suggested, what I learned at Canada's National Portfolio day Where all across canada schools and artists from around Canada and the us set up locations at major schools like Emily Carr and look at yur portfolio and make suggestions and such. also what litle advice I have gotten from studios I have applied to, which is not a lot.

First of all, focus on what you want to do, smaller studios often look for versatile can do a bit of everything kind of guys, while larger studios though they do like that an appreciate it, like to see specialization, sosomeone may be a good modeler with awesome animation abilities, don't show off a bunchof models, show off a bunch of animation

Most places for reels suggest 3 minutes. Lately the speakers that came to VFS all said make the first 30 sec to a minute really count, never save best for last, most places have a sorting process, they preview a quickglance and put you in the review later pile or the no pile. If you have a short film, whether a student film or not, don't how the eniter thing first, have a 1 minute preview with other works included, sorted of montage, and then provide the entire film on the tap after the montage part. You often see this from peopleworking in commercials and their reels, they show many clips and such, and then after the reel part they then have a few full commercials at the end.

Life drawing. Lifedrawinf is very important to many studios, you better be the most amazing 3D animator in the world to get a job at pixar without one. Not saying we all want to work at pixar, but lifedrawing is very important whether in design, modeling, animating, rigging, texturing lighting, it has elements that attriubte in all those areas. Now if your going into architecture, or product desgin and suhc, this may not be the case, this is specifically for animation studios and game studios.

some prime examples of good reels Hiko posted on on cgtalk just a little while ago that was a modeling reel for the most part, but also show his animaition and texturin/lighting, another is Anna Akram (sp?) who Thirdeye pointed me to, he has an awesome lightin modeling reel, I would consider him for modeling, but he'd be a definite hire for lighting. his reel is at www.warpedspace.org

Never Include originals, all studios accept photocopies or printouts of scans, even slides, which are often recommmended actually. Including stilloson a reel is acceptable, but sould be on for 3 seconds each and should come after the video stuff.

I have to go so I'll add more on later. these rules ren't set in stone, but just good guidlines.

[ThirdEye]

ehm Kai... Amaan not Anna :D

[AdamT]

This is just collected wisdom from various sources but....

It all depends on what you want to do. Do you want to work for someone else or do you want to work for yourself? If you want to do freelance work you're probably on the right track. Show a broad range of ability. If you want to work for a studio you *must* focus on a particular area, be it modeling, animation, surfacing, or lighting. In that case don't complicate your reel with things that don't matter. For example, if you are looking for modeling jobs present your models untextured and with basic lighting to demonstrate the quality of thee mesh. If you want a position doing surfacing accentuate that aspect and don't worry so much about modeling, etc.

I think the main piece of advice I see is only include your *absolute best* work. Don't pad the reel with *anything* that isn't your absolute pinnacle output, because it will bring the whole thing down. The people reviewing these things have hundreds to go through, so making it longer won't make you any friends. It may be a good idea to include some high-quality printed stills, which may grab someone's attention and get your reel reviewed instead of tossed in the bin.

Again, this is just collected wisdom, not from personal experience.

[flingster]

thanks guys really appreciate it.

file format any comments?

also if you concentrated on say modelling what areas would you try to highlight (i mentioned hi-low poly) are we just saying make the best damn models on the planet....or are saying as i once read its a good idea to take something that has already been done and re-work, re-modelled into 3d etc....a kinda theme running through the portfolio? (i saw one once where a guy re-modelled all the xmen comic characters...showed of his modelling abilty...and showed his work compared to something that already existed in the public domain)

lighting? difficult one...seasons, indoor, outdoor, drama, horror...what are we talking about any ideas? or does this sound right....after all its not really about highlights softwares ability to do something but your ability to pass it off isn't it?

also ya mentioned best work....are we talking photo realistic stuff or just cartoon if its looks damn good.

i know i know....i'm babbling....and everyone probably has a right and wrong but i woulda thought there were some pretty hard and fast rules.

(so far:
1 ) best work only
2) 3min short reel...best first
3) focus on area
4) include professional stills
5) life drawing as opposed just 3d stuff
6) never clarify or justify.

cool coming together...:thumbsup:

[kraal]

life drawing includes all traditional media......dont forget to add sketches and comps

[BiGiNnEr]

Put Some Of ur Old Drawings, Things That u will Be Making>.. Well i Dont know?:p ;)

[LucentDreams]

AdamT brought up a good point, which I did on my first reel, I put anything I oculd in, its quality rather than quantity. I mean the more you can show great, but don't show some cheesy test renders and such, or a model oyu did that was you first or second character and absolutlely sucked (cause we dont' always get them right)

For modeling its not as much just the subject matter or your inspiration, but the quality of the models, one nice thing about doing great models of say the X-men, is it shows you can work from some artwork and make it into 3D, but studios are looking for good clean meshes, great for animation, well optimised great attention to detail. But you brought up another issue. Realism versus cartoony, you could show a bit of each to show flexibility, but seriously which do oyu wnat to do, if you wanna do cartoony models, make cartoony models, wann do realistic stuff do realistic, wanna job modeling cars for add, then model cars. One advantage of original models is the design aspect, you show you can not only model but design as well, even better a sketch or two of a character or object and the model of it, all original shows great 2D and 3D design and modeling skills

For lighting, show a bunch of different moods, effects, times of day and season. study lighting from gret artists and artstyles, not just in painting but in film and such too.

again photorealism versus cartoony, could have a bit of both, but might want to specialize into what you would rather do. Carttony isn't bad 3D, in my personal opinion, being a lover of animation and cartoons, I like cartoony stuff more. I still am awed by stuff like thrideyes heads and adamT's Mini, but tht recent plucky duck animation that was on the front, wow, I mean wow, and Sully, his facial animation when he thinks boo is in the trash compactor, brilliant simply fantastic.

One thing not mentioned so far is collaboration, it is fine and often good to show collaboration pieces, it shows you can work with others. Make sure to have a credit list or jotnote sheet provided with your reel, this is where you provide a table of contents as to whats on the reel, your contact info, and credits for projects, don't mislead your employer into thinkingyou did it all by yourself.

Music, well there is no rule to music, Techno is sort of a trend, I see a lot of modeler especially now going for more heavy stuff, try to find something that reflects your personality, also try and get permission for it, and make sure to propoerly credit it. Things with nice tempos are good, words are better avoided but won't hurt if they are there, one great use of a song with lyrics is in Hiko's reel, appeared like the zombie was singing, freakyman.

Another important thing, NAME. your name should be on the tape, on the box, on the contents card, at the start and end of the reel, on every seperate page, if they are stapled toether, than you don't need your name on every page, but you want to make sure that if it gets misplaced, they know its your work not someone elses, and you want to embed your name.

again never send originals, and a good idea is to make an extra copy of your portfolio package put it in a large envelope and mail it to yourself. Never open thetpackage. Reason for this is the brilliance of the Canadian and US laws, not sure if this would work in any european countries, depends on copyrigth laws, but basically, POst Timestamps are government recognised, so if anyone does steal work (it can happen) you have a sealed envelope of your work, in your possesssion Dated and sealed. The courts can't deny that. its the cheapest offical copyrigth you can get.

and yeah life drawings isn't just nudes, sketches of still lifes, objects, quicksketches and detailed renderings, studies of specific things lik trees or hands are good, again best of the best, not anything you can find. For animators they look for good silhouettes, dynamic curves and angles, smooth flowing, quick rough, they aren't worried about proportions, for modeling, the opposite sort of, they want good accurate proprtions, nice volume, detailed anatomy good understanding of how tings connect and shape.

[flingster]

Kaiskai: really appreciate you taking so much time bud...

love the idea about posting copy to yourself.

i just felt this whole learning 3d/cinema curve was damn steep and not a lot of productivity was coming out the other end....by concentrating on specific areas and giving more focus to those areas i thought i might achieve a bit more....and hopefully those areas i concentrate on will result in something worth adding to a portfolio. i need to focus on small projects imho.

i just thought i'd put it out there and see what i got back...really appreciate what peoples experiences are....you've given me a lot to think about but all been really helpful..thanks..
:applause:

[LucentDreams]

one option to consider, if you choose to specialize, find fellow talented people to work and help. I mena if you shoose to focus on modeling, and you know an animator out there who doesn't do much modeling, they often need something to rig and animate, better than using a zygote. then oyu have some animated version of your model to put into your reel, and they have something better to animate. cross promotion is always helpful.

[flingster]

yeah i thought about that....but i really need to think about it a bit more. Come up with some specific task based projects that will give me some results and at the same time give me a sense of achievement/productivity in this whole learning curve.
thanks again....appreciated.

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