Drag0n Ninja Alley

[LaughingBun]

very cool. I think overal it has great composition and is nice to look at. But it seems really rushed. The modelling is kinda sloppy and the textures are blurry. The whole thing seems unrefined. I think that is probably why your having trouble finding a job. I think overal your stuff is very colorful and really nice but the closer you look at it the more you can see that its kinda "primitive". I would try making more pieces on a smaller scale so you can really concentrate on adding details and making a clean , finished piece.

[myd00m]

Well that is a fair crit to make, but thing is they said make it for an MMO. Every MMO I looked up screen shots for werent exactly super high poly and textures werent OMG amazing.

Examples:
http://guides.gamepressure.com/guildwars/gfx/gallery/large/Guild%20Wars%20Screenshots/guild_wars_screen_15.jpg
http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/704/704431/everquest-ii-echoes-of-faydwer-20060502035524337.jpg
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/world-of-warcraft-1.jpg
http://www.wired.com/images/article/full/2007/11/Tabula_Rasa_630x.jpg
Even with games that aren't MMO the environment textures always will look blurry or distorted because it is about Compisition when it comes to environments for games. Take Gears of War as a fine example of that.
http://xboxer.tv/BulletMarsh_02.jpg
The reason I am having a hard time is not because of the artwork, I have heard them say "Your artwork is amazing, but your experience is not convincing enough." It is more of a "my resume sucks" rather than artwork. I am not trying to be defensive at all and I take what you say as a crit and will concentrate on smaller objects. You telling me Compisition is good is enough for me to say then I did a good job on this. :D Games are secondary to me, I am originally a Machinist and QC manager for aerospace and manufacture parts that go inside of Boeing 747s, F16s, M16s, etc etc. So I took a huge paycut and decided to persue a career in games because I love doing this stuff. Especially when it comes to texturing and Environments, love doing it and playing around with it. I try to establish a style of my own because I don't want to end up like every other person who is just pressing buttons and making stuff happen. I like to take what other people do and combine it together taking bits and pieces from here and there and make something new. I look for alternatives. Man I need to shut up lol that is too much typing for me.

[blank]

My crits purely on this image:

1:i like the general composition but the eye is led down the alley to nothing,
2:tonally not much in the midtones, maybe a touch dark for me, but that could just be my monitor :-)
3:Big BAD: i noticed at top of image some untextured parts
4:the windows being the same really sticks out to me


on the whole checked out your portfolio to and i like your stuff though :D

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Quick point:

There something called the design triangle = cost/time/quality and its said you can never have all 3 :-)
Most games suffer from the pressure of evil publishers and have to hit cost/time so off goes a little quality to get it done in time.
some lucky developers just meet quality and the hell with cost/time

So what i'm saying is just because you may see a stretched texture or a slightly blurred one in a game doesn't make it right its just there may be other factors in the background to consider so always do your best and dont rest on your laurels.

Hell you should see the poop we have to churn out for military trainers as we have to stick to cost/time so close and hell with quality :D

[urgaffel]

Well that is a fair crit to make, but thing is they said make it for an MMO. Every MMO I looked up screen shots for werent exactly super high poly and textures werent OMG amazing.

Examples: <snip>

Even with games that aren't MMO the environment textures always will look blurry or distorted because it is about Compisition when it comes to environments for games. Take Gears of War as a fine example of that.

The reason I am having a hard time is not because of the artwork, I have heard them say "Your artwork is amazing, but your experience is not convincing enough." It is more of a "my resume sucks" rather than artwork. I am not trying to be defensive at all and I take what you say as a crit and will concentrate on smaller objects. You telling me Compisition is good is enough for me to say then I did a good job on this. :D Games are secondary to me, I am originally a Machinist and QC manager for aerospace and manufacture parts that go inside of Boeing 747s, F16s, M16s, etc etc. So I took a huge paycut and decided to persue a career in games because I love doing this stuff. Especially when it comes to texturing and Environments, love doing it and playing around with it. I try to establish a style of my own because I don't want to end up like every other person who is just pressing buttons and making stuff happen. I like to take what other people do and combine it together taking bits and pieces from here and there and make something new. I look for alternatives. Man I need to shut up lol that is too much typing for me.

While it's true that composition is really important in environment art, there's no excuse for blurry textures if you can avoid it. Besides, Gears isn't blurry when you wander around in the editor. I had a look at that level that you posted an example of and it looks pretty damn good with the animated rain etc and I can't really say that there are any blurry textures. What might affect it are fullscreen effects but I can asure you that most environment artists try their hardest to get the best looking stuff they can within the limitations they work with. Sometimes the tech will make things look a bit blurry but you should really try to get the highest quality you can. And don't leave things untextured ;)

[myd00m]

LOL I said the thing is 95% done, that is why you see that gray object. As for blurry textures, I don't sit there and make blurry txtures intentionally. They get blurred like that because I have a Specular Bloom Plugin enabed. I have UE3, Gear Editor, and Cryengine 2 with SDK, I have opened up every asset and everything, and a lot of the textures are very small so they tend to blur or smudge. Let me finish this thing today and I will post textures with it as well.

[akvan]

lookin good, hope you get the job!... quick question, for this art test did they give you a concept art to work from or did they just say "Dragon Alley" and then you had to make it up yourself?

[myd00m]

they said make an alley and make it fit for an mmo... it can be past present or future and be as creative as you can!

[scarredhands]

Hey man its looking good, can't wait to see the final render. It reminds me of something you'd see in Kung-fu hustle or Dragon Tiger Gate.

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii95/xscarredhandsx/dragonalleyee1.jpg

As far as my crit of the piece, I'd say on the dragon or tiger images that I circled(couldn't really tell), maybe fade some of them or switch them around so it doesn't look so uniform. The windows don't look to uniform unless you really look at them, players might not notice but the art director has more of a chance noticing this. Other than that I think it looks good and again like I said I really like the feel of the piece. Good luck hope you get the position. :thumbsup:

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