Environment Portfolio and Demo Reel

[Tumerboy]

Apply at Cryptic Studios. I know we've got openings, put my name in the email (Nick Duguid) and I'll recommend you to my Art Director today.

[broli4000]

Yeha bro. Looking great. Loved every bit of it!

The final scene/level was awesome. Looks like a few years work there!

Keep it up man, you'll get a job with that no problem!

[misterboogie]

Awesome work!
You shouldn't have any problems getting a job as environment artist.
It's only a matter of time.....

[Generalvivi]

Fantastic WORK! absolutly amazing stuff man!

i have pmed you .

[HellBoy]

looking solid mate

I wanted to see some demo reel of enviromental stuff

nice by the way and good luck :thumbsup:

[commanderkeen]

I like how the factory came out. Not sure about the website design though.

[heavyness]

very nice! top notch stuff. the only thing is the order of the presentation... i would edit it down a bit and put the Half Life 2 piece at the end. but thats me and my personally opinion [you shouldn't have any problems getting a job].

i like how you showed the smaller assets from within the HL2 level by themselves with their polycounts.

what software did you use to capture the video from within Half Life 2?

[Cyborgguineapig]

Hey man this is fantastic (especially the Source environment!). Its probably all you need to get picked up. Goodluck on the job search. Btw, do you happen to know any good resources for Source mapping?

[Synthesizer]

Thanks for all the positive comments everyone :)

Thanks for the offer Tumerboy, I'll definitely keep that in mind.

commanderkeen, I'll be the first to admit that my website isn't the greatest, but I feel it gets the job done. Is there anything in particular that you think might be changed for the better?

heavyness, I did notice it was getting a bit long, the Minas Tirith part could be cut down I suppose. I've always heard that it's better to put your best work first, and I suck at editing, so luckily I'm not applying for that kind of job :)

I recorded the video with HL2 itself actually. The trick is to do it in two steps. First bring up the console and type in "record filenamehere" Then do your walking around/shooting/etc. Bring up the console again and type "stop" Now load your demo that you've recorded. I can't remember the command for that, but if you type "demoui" you get a nice little UI for demos. Pause it at the start once it's loaded. Type in "startmovie imagename" You are now recording to TGA's in the main folder for that game, make sure you've got lots of drivespace, or lower your rez. Press play on the demoui and close it. Let it run through your demo and it will record everything for you. I don't know what the command is to stop the TGA recording, so I quit HL2 when I've got enough :p

Thanks Cyborgguineapig. Some good sites are below:

(http://www.chatbear.com/board.plm?b=390&v=flatold&g=21) [VERC Network Forums] (http://www.chatbear.com/board.plm?b=390&v=flatold&g=21)

Valve Developer Community (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page)

[Tumerboy]

Yes, always put your best work first. People like me that have to go through reels get bored, and if you're at the bottom of the pile, by time I get to you I'm only giving you maybe 10-15 seconds to impress me or I'm moving on. Sorry, it's sad, but true.

[euclidius]

excelent work-- no crits for me-- hmm yah- your site is a bit buggy though - but your reel is top notch keep up the good work :thumbsup:

[Pjanssen]

Hey Simon,

I think I've already said it to you personally, but I'll just say it again: great work!

I agree to the comments above, about it being a bit long/slow at some points. Perhaps you could try cutting between the ingame shot of the factory and the seperate items with the info, mesh and textures. I'd also consider altering the start a bit. As Tumerboy said, the very first thing you see could be decisive. The stairs are a nice 'lead in' of course, but not the most impressive to start with. So perhaps you could try editting a bit there too.
Another idea might be to put the town square in the middle, between the factory and MT. Now it feels a bit like 'oh I had this little piece too, let's try squeezing that in at the end'.

But all in all great stuff of course :thumbsup:

[Synthesizer]

Thanks for the tips everyone :)

euclidius, what happened to make you say that? I seem to be having some hosting problems with it sometimes being really slow. Did you get a white page or something? It seems my host always screws up the minute I need it for something important...

[Synthesizer]

Well, I thought I'd let you guys know that this reel did manage to get me some interviews and offers, one of which leading to a job. If you're interested on how that went, with some pictures of Stockholm and Vancouver, you can check out my blog, the link is in my signature.

I've got a bit of free time while I wait for a work permit, so I'm thinking of picking up the factory level again, and possibly writing some tutorials.

[Gamedev]

I knew you'd land something w/ your reel. Congrats. If you don't mind me asking, where did you end up?

[copain]

Congrats with your new job Simon, all the best to you.

please do write some tutorials it would help alot of people;

cheers

[effekted]

Hey Simon, great work in your reel! See you soon! ;)

[mindrot]

Great work and best of luck with you career :thumbsup:

~M~

[requiem2d]

Nice work man, best of luck :)

[misterboogie]

Congrats! You've got a promising career ahead of you.

Where the frack are the stars for this thread?

[Tumerboy]

Congrats dude, have fun over there.

[Synthesizer]

Thanks for the nice words everyone :)

@copain: What sort of a tutorial would you like to see? I don't think I'll do one about getting a model into Source, I may compile a list of links to check out, but writing an actual tutorial for that doesn't interest me. I was thinking of one on lighting, as I did it in a way that I haven't seen in other HL2 maps.

[copain]

Hi Simon

I really liked your lighting in that map.
It would be great if you can write something about that.

Good luck with it
and thx.

[Sa74n]

hey simon :)

great work on that stuff!

[Tad]

dude you should have no problems landing a job.

a couple more pieces like your factory and you'll probably have a nice choice of places to work

[Synthesizer]

dude you should have no problems landing a job.

a couple more pieces like your factory and you'll probably have a nice choice of places to work

If you flip back one page, you'd see that I already got one :)

Thanks Henning.

I think I will do a lighting tutorial. It may be in a week or so, as the freelance TV stuff picked up again, to tide me over until I get my work permit and can start my real job. It's so frustrating to be this close to making games, and yet still stuck here doing mind numbingly stupid commercials... It pays the bills though I guess.

[Synthesizer]

Well, I managed to do a little write up on lighting with textures in Source. It's located in my blog here: http://www.simonbarsky.com/blog/?page_id=38

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