Alec Moody- Environment Artist

[alecmoody]

I just redesigned my portfolio and added some new content. My goal was to create something with the least interface and still maintain organization while allowing for large image sizes (and no flash). I also wanted it to be easy to navigate on an iphone.

Screen resolutions of less than 800 pixels high may have trouble (1024x768 works in chrome but not firefox's default layout) but mobile devices should work fine.

http://www.alecmoody.com

I am looking for employment (SF bay area), and critique on the website.

[Rick_D]

hey bro, some nice stuff (texture res is a bit crazy in places ) - the one thing that i noticed whilst browsing, was that the horizontal nature of the layout makes it hard to browse on a PC, I imagine it'd be nice to swish your finger around and pull the pages sideways using an iphone, but navigating with a mouse becomes a chore, as you constantly have to have your mouse clicked on the scroll bar at the bottom, or use middle mouse and dragging (which is less than ideal).

if the site were vertical, the screenshot-links rotated 90 degress, and the images arranged vertically it would just be a case of scrolling with the mouse wheel. and i imagine it would not be that much of a chore for iphone users?

is there a major reason that you want employers to look at your portfolio on an iphone? the people that matter, who will be giving you interviews, will 99 times out of a 100 be looking at your portfolio whilst sat at their desk using at least a 22 or 24inch monitor. design for them, they are the ones that matter!

sorry to talk about the site so much, the work is great, but navigating it was a challenge

[alecmoody]

thanks for the feedback. I chose a horizontal scroll because I like how it sits on the page and how it works well combined with windscreen monitors. To me scrolling vertically feels less designed.. maybe because its the default behavior. Also I can pick a common pixel height and then change the aspect ratio and still get the images to line up which is important since vertical resolution is more restricted by toolbars and monitor aspect ratio than horizontal.

about the iphone thing: Going through the IP logs of my old site layout I found a surprising number Iphone users. It was probably about 1/8 of my visitors.

[Warby]

i endorse this artist i have worked with him before and he has great skills motivation and work ethics ... end of statement !

[Defrag]

Nice stuff, but crank up the Anti-Aliasing when grabbing viewport captures. No need for jaggies in a portfolio

[alecmoody]

Hey thanks, I will do that. I didnt have max2010 yet when I did most of the viewport captures and 2009 doesnt let you AA the viewport for some reason. Will recapture. Great David Byrne avatar BTW

[JeanPaul]

awesome

[Taz]

imo it needs more "words", like your name at the top. An Information that makes possible a contact between you and a employer appears only when we click on one of your works. How about your software knowleadges? Languages? Phone? Personal skills?

Personally i like portfolios that gives a concise explanation about some stages of a prop/texture/sprits' production, not just putting some screens of it, it shows your "way of thinking" and can be considered as a plus.

Look at this screen:

It is noticed that the images are scattered on the screen, making hard to take a direction while visiting your portfolio.

[alecmoody]

more of that info is in there but my website doesn't support that small amount of vertical resolution. 1024x768 support is iffy and you have so many toolbars that the usable res is below what is compatible (about 555 vertical pixels in your case). I will try and build a third smaller version for 1024x768 and below.

[alecmoody]

This was easier to do than I had thought. I now have a third size for my website that is compatible down to 800x600. Going to http://www.alecmoody.com again should load the correct size. I also made all the portfolio images in the small and medium layouts links to the larger images.

[Lord Ned]

If I were a potiential higher, I would have just closed your website.

Granted, I'm using Noscript which some employers MAY.

Just build the site for 1024. According to w3schools, 56% or more of internet users use higher than 1024. Then 36% still use 1024. That's 93 or so % right there that you just covered with one resolution.

And most game companies would run higher than 1024 I'd imagine.

(http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp)

Once inside the site: On both 'Highres" and "Lowrez" sites, I have to scroll sideways on my 1440x900 monitor.

Nice sharkdog though.

[Psy]

I don't like the horizontal scrolling at all.

[Nineaxis]

I don't like the horizontal scrolling at all.

I have to agree, horizontal scrolling just isn't good. It'd be way easier to just make the site vertical and not have to deal with screen resizing issues or anything.

[alecmoody]

Ned

it seems a little unreasonable to run noscript and then when you do encounter a script to react negatively.

When I designed the site one of my criteria was large images. designing for just 1024x768 would mean my images shouldn't be taller that 500px, I want the layout to look good on 24" widescreens as well as older machines running with CRTs at 1280x1024.

About the choice to to horizontal scroll. I think I mostly addressed it up top but I will elaborate.

I chose a horizontal scroll because I like how it sits on the page and how it works well combined with windscreen monitors. To me scrolling vertically feels less designed.. maybe because its the default behavior. Also I can pick a common pixel height and then change the aspect ratio and still get the images to line up which is important since vertical resolution is more restricted by toolbars and monitor aspect ratio than horizontal.

Visually I want all my images to line up, in a vertical layout they can share a common width and the height can change, in a horizontal layout the height stays the same and the width can change. Since vertical pixels are more restricted because of toolbars and monitor aspect ratio and my images are nearly all in landscape format, it makes sense to use a horizontal layout. Im not quite sure why some people have such a reaction to using their horizontal scroll bar or clicking their middle mouse button. Its less work than navigating a series of thumbnails.

My original design was going to try and use the least interface possible by putting all my work into a grid where new images span rows and elaborating and supporting images would be in columns. It turns out that is really really confusing to view because the idea only makes sense if you can see a large enough portion of the grid at once to understand the structure.

[Hourences]

Those WC3 stats are too general I think. My own website pulls in loads of developers, and according to my stats only 7% of all my visitors have a resolution of 1024x768 or below. That means 93% of all people who visit my site use at least 1280 or above.

I don't object the sideway scrolling. I do think however that it is easy to miss the stuff on the side and that it is hard to use the horziontal scroll bar. I would look into placing big and obvious arrows/buttons on the left and right side to illustrate the fact that there is more stuff over there, and to allow you to scroll much more easily.