Where to post for critiques?

#1

Hello. I’d like to get a critique done of a portfolio piece. I’m wondering where to post it and somewhat what the rules are. Is there a specific forum to use?

Thank you

#2

You can post it here…

Just keep in mind, that forum activity in general is slower today vs 10 years ago. This can be partially blamed on Social Media.

A lot of Veteran Artists and people who work in the industry prefer to make a name for themselves and attract followers, instead of the old days where they treated forums like a hangout spot.

#3

Still somewhat a WIP. I don’t have the AOC pass going yet. It’s based on a real one that someone I know use to own. Also including the orthographics. I’m thinking to do more with the sky, and get better contact shadows going. The bottom is screwed up but not real obvious in these angles, not sure it’s relevant due to it being the bottom, not easily visible and so on.

I just realized you can’t see the sky in these, lol! I have literally just a shade of blue for the sky. Haven’t done anything with it yet.

Goal is photorealism or surrealism, somewhat product visualization for my portfolio. Not entirely sure how to do, or what to do about the headlights yet, part of why it’s a WIP. They sort of have the contemporary tinted look but, the rest of the design definitely is way different and not matchingly contemporary.

Also including some of the reference I used.

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#4

I have some feedback for you:

  1. It’s ok to want to play with rendering/presentation, but if you want to make a portfolio prop that could eventually impress employers, you need to worry about making the modeling look good first, then the texturing quality, THEN you can make your way to the final lighting effects.

Unless you get hired as a generalist, Employers would rather pick someone who is really good at one skill, then try to match them all in the first go.

  1. With this information in mind, I heavily recommend you focus on getting the 3D Model to look professional. Recall art fundamentals like proportions, scale, symmetry etc. It matters a lot in a production to have these details look consistent and very accurate to the concept art, as the 3D Model needs to be passed around several art departments later (i.e surfacing department will texture it, riggers will rig the model, animators will want to make it move, lighters and post processing editors will add the final effects). If the 3D Model contains flaws then you can see how it would affect every stage of the pipeline.

  2. To get an idea of what professional 3D models look like, definitely spend some time online finding portfolios of industry artists and match what they do. Most times, they will post the wireframes and other tech breakdowns of their work so it’s even easier to follow. I’ll use an example, this guy made a very realistic 3D Tank for video game development:
    https://www.artstation.com/artwork/2q8KJv

Or if you are into Cartoons and want to work in TV/Movies, then this guys portfolio is also a good example to follow:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lVrDmJ

I know both examples look daunting at first but trust me: it’s better you learn this now. Expectations for 3D graphics is at its highest its ever been. Competition is also fierce, with many senior artists being your direct rivals.

This website will help you a lot to get up to speed quickly. Read anything on the polycount wiki and check out its modeling page.

http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Subdivision_Surface_Modeling

Edit: If you go the route of video games, make sure your models demonstrate both high poly and low poly modeling. Present your low poly model in a game engine like Unreal, Unity, or real time viewers like Marmoset or Sketchfab.

If you go the route of TV and Movies, then your models should represent higher polygon countss that are able to subdivide easily. Often times, it’s also good to know 3D sculpting. Mudbox or Zbrush are amazing tools at this.
Render out your model in Maya/3DS Max/Blender etc with up to date lighting software like Vray, Arnold, Redshift etc. Avoid using the default scanline stuff.

  1. NOW, once your model has been made up to Industry standards, I would look into the texturing process. It’s very similar to the above. It’s a combination of applying art fundamentals, matching your references, and applying lots of problem solving skills.

The images you posted right now have very basic materials. Learn about the PBR process. Download or buy 3D painting software such as Substance Painter or Mari, or even use Blender. Learn how to create Albedo textures, roughness maps, metalness maps, normal maps, ambient occlusion maps etc. I can share this helpful link for you to get an idea of what this all means.

  1. With modeling and texturing now up to par, you can focus on the actual lighting and presentation. To get closer to photorealism, you’ll need a good understanding of what ray tracing is, what global illumination is. Invest some time as well in also learning the properties of how light works, the times of day for lighting, how shadows behave etc. I’ll post a resource that helped me in the past:

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light03.htm

For presentation, the topic becomes a bit more subjective, but generally, you just want your art pieces to tell a story to the viewer.

Again, many professional portfolios are online from confirmed industry artists to study from. Such as this person who worked on Rockstar game titles, and it shows in his work.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wJ1vq9

My final advice, don’t feel intimidated. Art is a passion and the hard work does pay off if you improve your skills greatly.

My first 3D models where literally just 3D Cubes bolted next to Cylinders. My younger self thought they looked cool, but if I wanted to get a job that could feed myself and pay the bills, then I eventually had to look at everything I was doing, weed out the ugly and bad artwork, and keep trying again with new portfolio pieces that could attract employers.

#5

Hmm, yeah there isn’t as much activity on these forums as there use to be. Thank you kindly for the advice and directions in things. I was hoping for more than just 1 critique despite the views.

Critiquing my own work after stepping away from it for a bit:

Stuff that I feel isn’t working that well with this:

  1. The camera angles may not be tight enough to show enough detail for much critiquing.
  2. There is a lack of depth and spatial definition partly due to the lack of an AOC pass, it almost looks like it’s floating.
  3. Showing the sky could help alot with the overcall composition.
  4. The tires look extremely flat, there’s just about not interaction with the treads and the light and dark etc…
  5. What looks like a rendering error on the left A pillar is actually a bad accident with the lighting.
  6. There’s borderline not much perspective scale being shown. Try to play around with the surround environment.
  7. Accentuating the seams in the surround where the ground plane and the walls meet may help with the realism and composition.
  8. An AOC pass would really help to sell things overall.
  9. Consider a dirtmap pass unless the reference really is super clean and shiny, this is a military vehicle from the 70s in Eastern Europe, no flecks in the paint, no highlights, very pragmatic and utilitarian in the paint job and aesthetics.
  10. Need to decide what to do with the headlights.

Now what I feel is working rather well:

  1. The basic form is there but, camera angles may not be close enough to really show it all that much.
  2. The headlights have a lot of steering potential as to the look and feel of the front end.
  3. Fixing the modeling glitch under it may not be needed, the catch though is it may screw up other parts of the pipeline later on.
  4. Lighting looks fairly good.
  5. The concrete surfacing helps along the idea that it’s a vehicle along with the walls.
  6. The window frames have some interesting hard angles to them.
  7. If aiming for a minimialistic look or paint job, it’s in the right direction, the only colors being significantly used are yellow and black(Amber turn signals).

A work in progress still, so I’ll be updating it later :smile:

#6

I would also recommend that you don’t have to tackle a very complicated prop from the beginning.

While it’s an excellent learning experience and would make a nice art piece, Employer’s still care more about your actual work process. They want to know if you actually understand topology, subdivision modeling, proper edge loop flow, optimized geometry counts etc.

Here’s a good example. A senior level artist remade an old video game prop he did 12 years ago. This is perfect, because he demonstrates he kept pace with modern technology and expectations, instead of stagnating. Yet even something like this is still good enough to get the job, especially as he documents his process and even made a tutorial video of his improvement.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nEo2zr

Don’t get me wrong, you can still keep working on the vehicle you have right now. Just be mindful, the more complex a concept art or reference is, you need to dedicate lots of time to making it look good as well. In some cases, people work on their complex portfolio pieces for months. There’s never a need to rush, especially when you’re not hired yet. Use that time to polish up your work and have a solid understanding of what you’re doing.

#7

I think this may be my final post here. These forums are not what they use to be. Update to what I was working on though not the final version.

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#8

I hope for everyone elses sake they fix the server. I keep getting ‘bad gateway’ errors and it seems to be having trouble logging me out.