Hi everyone, this is my first post on the Sumea forums, I've just recently completed a course in 3D in brisbane and I'm now jobhunting.
I was hoping I could get some pointers on my showreel, any advice is appreciated.
Download Link(18mb)
Thanks in advance!
- Doble
Hey James,
I hope you don't mind but I thought I would give you a bit of a critique on your reel.
We have all been through the trials of trying to get that first gig and generally the feedback you recieve is vague at best.
Mechanoid
- This guy looks pretty cool.
- Has this model been textured though? I can't tell if you have or wether you just applied coloured materials to different pieces of the mesh.
- It is important to both prop and character modellers to have some basic skill in texturing.
- Show the UV's and texture sheets.
- The pose is very boring and uninspired. It also looks as if it could topple backwards at any minute.
-Adding a decent pose will bring your mesh to life, you don't need to be an expert rigger or animator, you just need to give the model some personality.
- While the mesh is pretty clean I think you could get it a lot lower than 7600 triangles.
- The density of the distribution of the tris are erratic, think about where the actor will need to deform.
- Try to keep the smoothness consistent where possible, having really smooth fingers but chunky calfs isn't that important unless your actor is a hand model for Oil of Ulan. lol
Raider:
- Its a pretty messy mesh in parts and the triangle density isn't very uniform. Some areas are smooth while others are lacking polys.
- Show the UV's and texture sheets.
Viper:
Much better use of triangles than the Raider, a lot cleaner and optimised mesh.
- Texture needs work, think about the decals, scratches from battle and space debris, lighting etc.
- Show the UV's and texture sheets.
Dozer:
- Cute and cleanly built but not really showing anything an employer would be impressed with.
- Again, is there no texture?
- Show the UV's and texture sheets.
Battle Tank:
- Nice design but it feels incomplete.
- Is it a work in progress? If so I personally would have finished this piece or not shown it. Unless you are trying to show your workflow an incomplete piece in a portfolio seems pretty pointless.
Space Marine:
- Not bad but space marines are a dime a dozen, it needs to be really good to sell and a work in progress shot isn't doing that. Again, finish it or maybe don't add it.
- There are some questionable choices with the mesh, especially around the side of the helmet. High poly modelling isn't just about throwing more triangles at a mesh, you still need to make smart choices.
Animation short:
Its obvious you went to a lot of effort with the animation however its a common mistake people do when they start out, fly throughs really don't show employers anything great, they certainly don't give them an idea of how well you animate.
No to mention the extra time it must have taken to set up the cameras, lighting, build planets etc.
Think about how many times you would be called upon to animate a ship flying through space? Unless your working on a space flight simulators cutscenes then its going to be very little.
(I personally did a fly through of a wizards tower for my first portfolio, can't say I've been called upon to do that again recently. lol.)
I think your time would have been better spent taking your Mechanoid for a stroll.
In General:
Overall you certainly put a lot of effort into the reel, more than most of the reels I see at work.
My advice is to decide which area you really want to do.
Its a common trap for people to do the 'jack of all trades master of none' reel first time.
Personaly from your reel I'd say the best skill you have shown is your low poly modelling.
If you were to show some texture and unwrapping skills then applying for a junior props position might be a good foot in the door.
If you are more interested in character modelling then you are going to need to work on your polyflow, optimisation and density. You need to think about how a mesh will deform during animation otherwise you will be the bane of your animating workmates. :P
Also, most of the character guys I know have a few skills sets. All model and texture but some can rig and/or animate as well.
Overall you certainly have the potential, just think about how your reel defines you when presented to an employer.
I hope that helped, good luck.
Thanks for the replies! I wasn't expecting such great feedback, thanks so much!
[QUOTE=shika]I take it you're looking for a junior game artist position? If that's the case I think you need to demonstrate a few more skills in your reel, i.e. unwrapping and texturing.[/quote]
Yeah, I am currently looking for a junior position, and I agree, you are right. Since I have finished my course and the frenzy of getting everything finished on time has passed, I look back on my reel and see a lot of things I could improve, and much of it seems obvious, not showing texturing/unwrapping is one of my big mistakes.
[QUOTE=shika]My favorite piece from your reel is easily the battle tank, it has a really interesting design IMO, why not bump it up to the start?[/quote]
Its funny you say that, because when I was working on it, I thought the battle tank was the worst of the lot, but time and again people tell me that was their favourite. I must be onto a good thing
[QUOTE=shika]I'd cut out the Dozer and the animation at the end as they feel really weak, the dozer looks like a 10 minute job and the animation isn't all that impressive (spaceships flying through space? meh).[/QUOTE]
Good point, the dozer isn't much to look at, in hindsight I shouldn't have included it in the reel. As for the animation, I suppose it isn't very interesting but I was more trying to convey that I have a good sense of cinematics rather than my animation skills. Perhaps I should work on my delivery.
[QUOTE=Malus]Mechanoid
- This guy looks pretty cool.
- Has this model been textured though? I can't tell if you have or wether you just applied coloured materials to different pieces of the mesh.
- It is important to both prop and character modellers to have some basic skill in texturing.
- Show the UV's and texture sheets.
- The pose is very boring and uninspired. It also looks as if it could topple backwards at any minute.
-Adding a decent pose will bring your mesh to life, you don't need to be an expert rigger or animator, you just need to give the model some personality.
- While the mesh is pretty clean I think you could get it a lot lower than 7600 triangles.
- The density of the distribution of the tris are erratic, think about where the actor will need to deform.
- Try to keep the smoothness consistent where possible, having really smooth fingers but chunky calfs isn't that important unless your actor is a hand model for Oil of Ulan. lol[/QUOTE]
First off, no he isn't textured, he has a basic 'car paint' style material to give him a nice metallic sheen, but thats about it. I had originally wanted to make this character part of a short animation, but as the year wore on I lost interest and finished him quickly for my reel.
Regarding the pose, he's in the default pose I modelled him in, while I initially modelled him with animation in mind over time that changed to a model that I wasn't going to animate, hence my not taking any real interest in mesh deformation. In hindsight it was pretty stupid, since modelling a character like that and not taking animation into account is a waste of time, but I didn't think of that then.
I agree with you on the pose, while the model itself isn't fantastic a good pose would make it twice as good. I would have to fix up alot of the mesh to be able to pose him properly without modelling issues, but thats something I plan to do.
I didn't spend a lot of time optimising the mesh, like I said I had lost interest in the character, so working on him became a chore. I've been working to change my attitude and I find I'm better able to see projects through nowadays.
Regarding the hands, I had never modelled hands before, so it was sort of a challenge to see how good i could get them looking, I had a bit of fun with it and they came out well, but very mismatched when compared to the rest of the mesh.
[QUOTE=Malus]Raider:
- Its a pretty messy mesh in parts and the triangle density isn't very uniform. Some areas are smooth while others are lacking polys.[/quote]
To be honest, I'm surprised, I thought this was probably one of the best models on my reel, but I would very much like to know how to improve it. When you say triangle density, do you mean using a lot of tris in one area of detail but not much in another? Because I thought that was alright, in terms of showing detail in one area that needs it (say, the face grill) but not showing detail in another area which is flat, or lacking detail (say, the top side of the wing)
Can you explain a little further about that? Or maybe link me to an article I can read up on it?
[QUOTE=Malus]Viper:
Much better use of triangles than the Raider, a lot cleaner and optimised mesh.
- Texture needs work, think about the decals, scratches from battle and space debris, lighting etc. [/quote]
Compared to the Raider, this was designed from the ground up to be a game model and to be low poly, so I'm glad my intentions were recognised, heh. The raider was more of a medium poly model, I had intended it to have a low poly version which would look alright in a game but also look good when smoothed for use in my animations. Perhaps this is why you picked up on it being a messy mesh.
With the texture, I had begun work on a battle-scarred version of the clean texture, but I ran out of time to finish it, I was spending a lot of my time finding my way around UV unwrapping and playing with bump maps and whatnot.
[QUOTE=Malus]Dozer:
- Cute and cleanly built but not really showing anything an employer would be impressed with.
- Again, is there no texture?
- Show the UV's and texture sheets.[/quote]
No texture on this one, it was designed for a friend of mine who was doing a programming course, he wanted an ultra low poly dozer for his game, and a texture would have been a waste of time, since the game had very cartooney graphics, so simple materials were more than enough. In hindsight, not really showreel material.
[QUOTE=Malus]Battle Tank:
- Nice design but it feels incomplete.
- Is it a work in progress? If so I personally would have finished this piece or not shown it. Unless you are trying to show your workflow an incomplete piece in a portfolio seems pretty pointless.[/quote]
This is a work in progress, yes. While my lecturers hammered into us the idea of not showing work on our showreel that was incomplete or not to the highest standard, when you are looking at your showreel with only three models on it the night before it goes on show to a bunch of people from the games industry, you tend to throw that advice to the winds. Once again hindsight is 20/20 and I agree with you that incomplete work is not worth putting on my reel.
[QUOTE=Malus]Space Marine:
- Not bad but space marines are a dime a dozen, it needs to be really good to sell and a work in progress shot isn't doing that. Again, finish it or maybe don't add it.
- There are some questionable choices with the mesh, especially around the side of the helmet. High poly modelling isn't just about throwing more triangles at a mesh, you still need to make smart choices.[/quote]
Once again another work in progress that shouldn't have ended up on my reel.
This was actually the first model I created myself when I began my course at the start of 2006, this is why alot of it is poorly modelled when you look at the mesh. As the year picked up I shelved the project to work on other things, and ended up sticking the half finished thing on the end of my reel, without spending any time to clean it up etc.
[QUOTE=Malus]Animation short:
Its obvious you went to a lot of effort with the animation however its a common mistake people do when they start out, fly throughs really don't show employers anything great, they certainly don't give them an idea of how well you animate.
No to mention the extra time it must have taken to set up the cameras, lighting, build planets etc.
Think about how many times you would be called upon to animate a ship flying through space? Unless your working on a space flight simulators cutscenes then its going to be very little.
(I personally did a fly through of a wizards tower for my first portfolio, can't say I've been called upon to do that again recently. lol.)
I think your time would have been better spent taking your Mechanoid for a stroll.[/quote]
When I began thinking up animations for my showreel, I was pretty wary of animating, I didn't have much confidence in my ability, and as such I was worried that I would make my models look even worse by having poor animation. I remember my lecturers saying "If you have a great model, but you can't animate, its better to have the model stationary than ruin it with jerky, dodgy animation." I think I took this a bit too much to heart and steered completely clear from character animation all together, and ended up with some dull flybys showcasing my modelling ability.
I agree with you once again, and character animation is one area I want to improve my skills in.
[QUOTE=Malus]In General:
Overall you certainly put a lot of effort into the reel, more than most of the reels I see at work.
My advice is to decide which area you really want to do.
Its a common trap for people to do the 'jack of all trades master of none' reel first time.
Personaly from your reel I'd say the best skill you have shown is your low poly modelling.
If you were to show some texture and unwrapping skills then applying for a junior props position might be a good foot in the door.[/quote]
Yeah, I definitely fit this description, I had a very hard time picking a speciality because I felt like I had done so little of each field, picking one to specialise in so early in my career was impossible. Of course, I know now that I could have just picked one and ran with it, then moved elsewhere after a year or so, but that didn't occur to me last year.
Since I completed my course, I've started to hone in on low poly modelling, I've got some friends who are doing a mod for FarCry and I started modelling an AK-47 for them, as an experiment since I had never modelled a gun before, and its turning out quite well. Since that is probably the sort of thing I will be doing in a junior position, I figure it might be worth putting on my reel along with a few other game assets once its finished, what do you think?
I just recently got a job tutoring on the weekends at my college. I'm a strong believer that one of the best ways to learn is to teach others, plus this keeps me in the loop of the 3D industry and active on the subject. I'm really looking foward to starting there (the college year hasn't begun yet) and pushing out another showreel with even better work.
My current goal is to get a job in the 3D industry during the week, so I can work 9-5 from monday to friday, and then tutor on saturdays. (and possibly evenings during the week) I really love focusing in on one task and working on something for hours on end, I've been known to miss lunch and dinner, only to finish my model and poke my head out of cyberspace to find its 3am and I've missed out. The sense of accomplishment that I get from seeing my work come from a cube with some extrudes to a completed model really gets me fired up, and motivates me to do more. I'm hoping that this kind of constant high-energy work will be what I get when I find a good job during the week.
I find that if I immerse myself in a certain interest or hobby I'm able to improve my skills in that area and become the best, I've decided I want to be one of the top dogs in 3D so it's only a matter of time now.
Watch this space!
- DobleDoble2007-01-30 08:01:26
Here's the AK-47 I mentioned, the modelling is complete, its about 2000 polys and I plan on texturing it next. I've been working on this on and off over 3 days.
Its also fully ready (in terms of modelling) for animation, the clip and stock are easily animated, and the shell ejection bolt is also easy to work with.
I also did a lil test animation of the stock opening up to make sure it worked and looked good.
Would appreciate some crits on this.
Cheers!
EDIT: Just after I posted this, I noticed a glitch at the back of the rifle, just above the stock where it curves, I've since fixed it :)
- DobleDoble2007-01-31 08:58:34
Hey Doble,
I take it you're looking for a junior game artist position? If that's the case I think you need to demonstrate a few more skills in your reel, i.e. unwrapping and texturing. It's unlikely that a company will hire a junior for the sole purpose of creating low poly models, so show off some efficient UVs and texture sheets.
My favorite piece from your reel is easily the battle tank, it has a really interesting design IMO, why not bump it up to the start?
I'd cut out the Dozer and the animation at the end as they feel really weak, the dozer looks like a 10 minute job and the animation isn't all that impressive (spaceships flying through space? meh).
You might also want to finish that space marine...
good luck with the search dude