Jonathan Cliff - Level Designer

Hello Mapcore!,

I've been a lurker on the site for some time now, figured i may aswell sign up and get some helpful feedback on my portfolio and perhaps learn some new design techniques.

I've only got 2 projects on my portfolio at the minute but i'm currently working through the summer period bulking up the content, this is down to the Hotel Holmes project taking quite some time to complete.

Some feedback would be great, what to and not to include. I'm also curious as to how important Pre-Production materials are on your portfolio?

http://www.jonathan-cliff.co.uk/

Cheers!.

Quote from 3Dnj

Dunno if it's just me but your website is too heavy ! Can't load half of the stuff in there.

I looked into it but everything is compressed and should be running fine, could someone else verify this?

[Blocked Image: http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7028/lgt6965.png]

Quote from iwxanthi

No problems here with your site, runs smooth.

Anyway I like your portfolio and especially the small descriptions are a big plus. You could show some pre-production stuff but keep it minimal. You can always provide more details in a interview.

Thanks, i was thinking more of just including early layouts.

As for the video i have on the Hotel Holmes page it's 7minutes long, i recently read a presentation by Naughtydog suggesting no more than 4 minutes for showreels, do you reckon this is something i should stick too?

Working on editing down the files now, i figured a trailer would fit more appropriately.

Quote from smok3y

It won't load at all for me. I'm in the States.

My website was down during this period, pesky HostUltra!.

Thank you very much for the feedback!.

I've removed some work from my portfolio as i just didn't enjoy looking at them anymore. I'm currently in my final year of Univeristy working on a group project in Unity, as well as a solo project with UDK so that will be the bulk of my content.

I do plan on going back and editing Hotel Holmes project some what after Uni, which is why i haven't edited the videos yet. I have stumbled across a better way to present it.

There is a blog that i will be updating weekly regarding my final year project which is why i kept the site up. Thanks again for the feedback, much appreciated.

Quote from Alf-Life

Not sure if you're still looking for feedback after this time ...but... the video looks great! Far beyond what our teams managed at University!

Thanks for your feedback, i just checked your CV and it appears we attended the same University, well i'm still there.

By any chance did you give a lecture this month at Teesside regarding Killzone Shadowfall?.

Quote from PaulH

I also went to Teesside I checked your portfolio but only the top project (Hotel Holmes) seems to be loading...

The second year team project (with outsourcing) sounds interesting, when I was there we only did a 10 man project in the final year, it didn't do so much to prepare me for working in the industry though as we all worked quite separately and some members of my group did at little as possible to get involved. Sounds like they're trying to alleviate that somewhat which is good

I checked your portfolio and i think i remember seeing a screenshot of your Southfield Pub level somewhere, how did you find your time at Teesside?

There's two big group modules that go on now, the second year one is the biggest they call it Journeyman and it's amazingly fun. I got to present the game to Peter Molyneux who came down after the Uni won a lecture from the Godus Kickstarter. The second is 'Advanced Game Dev' where we actually get to work with programmers this time, that's the last project on my portfolio. Alot of us have also signed up for ExpoTees this year and are waiting confirmation wether we got accepted on the 17th, so fingers crossed!.

Hotel Holmes is currently the only portfolio piece on there at the minute, the other two projects are ongoing.. only 3 months left till i graduate though so i'll be adding those up then.

Here's a short clip of my current final year project build focusing on creating gameplay through only visual scripting, still along way togo with adding AI and objectives, but the core is there.

Quote from PaulH

Yeah the Journeyman bit sounds new, we did the advanced game dev project in the final year though. My time at Teesside was good, even if I spent a lot of the last 2 years locked away working on both uni work and portfolio pieces Good luck with Expotees, we did that too, was a good chance to speak to people from some of the local development studios...if you get to that stage it's worth taking e-mail addresses from various studios and forwarding on your portfolio for them to check out, so make sure it's all updated by that point (and mark anything on it as 'in progress' if it doesn't yet exist)

Your final project looks interesting, update it when you're further along, will be interesting to see how it turns out

I've recently started a thread showing off the updates of my FYP here:

I've updated my portfolio with some more content. (Torque racing HUD & Other Worldly Wizardry).

Other Worldly Wizardry is still being developed but i felt it's at a good point to demonstrate the game mechanics in which i can receive feedback from.

Regarding any HUD/UI work, do you think it's best to either group all that work together under one category or separate them just as i am doing?. I wouldn't want the first page to look too cluttered.

- University is comming to an end now, just got a few more weeks left so it's time for me to get my portfolio together and better organised before i can venture into the big bad world!.

Appreciate the feedback!.