Oliver Bartman - Environment Artist

[Ginio Beast]

Hi guys,

my name is Oliver Bartman, graduated from my course July 2011 and just finished off my portfolio, I'm looking for my first job in the industry, and starting to put my applications out. Any critique, comments or feedback you might be able to offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

http://oliverbartman.carbonmade.com/

[e-freak]

Not commenting on any of the modelling or texturing here, but you should think about getting your assets into a game engine and do a proper lighting for them. The whole diffuse viewport lighting doesn't help the presentation, while a nice lighting setup in either Unreal or CryEngine might bring this a long way.

[Warby]

everything is too gray and boring all your ref pictures have way brighter and higher saturated colors than your assets ... elevate reality dont tone it down !

also a lot of you material breakdowns have spec masks in them yet i see no specular/cubemap reflection anywhere on your renders ?

the pipes in the "waste" picture is way too low tesselated for something that you can walk right up to and stick your camera against. this is not where you want to save polies !

[-HP-]

Your portfolio looks like a overcast day in Poland dude.

From what I understood, you just graduated so I'm going to assume all these pieces were school projects? Then I would say that graduating was just the first step of many to become a good professional, start from scratch, and loose the scenes you have at the moment, and use everything you learned (art /tech wise) to come up with better stuff.

You have the basis covered up, you know how to model, how to unwrap, how to texture and how to light so It's a good base to keep improving on, so use this knowledge to build game art environments, and use a game engine not a renderer!

Looking at your portfolio, I can tell you worked on your scenes by following "guidelines" instead of putting artistic love into it, and this is what I would call a typical "Game artist student portfolio", it shows workflow but no artistic taste whatsoever.

If you wanna win as a environment artist, you need to start working on your artistic skills. Look at art other people made, look at concept art, bookmark art websites, watch artistic movies, study how they look and why they look certain ways, study color theory and you'll definitely get there.

Good luck

[PogoP]

Yeah I would hold off on sending out any applications for the time being; you need to work on your portfolio more.

Your textures are very noisy and grimy, try toning it down a bit and trying to nail the basic material first before adding loads of grunge. Don't just run the Nvidia filter on your diffuse maps to get normal maps; actually try and bake out some proper normal maps from geo or using ndo. Not every texture needs a normal map, remember! It should only be used to accentuate details where needed. For example, the dirt on the skip doesn't need to be normal mapped on; it just looks odd.

And also, really work on your lighting. It's very flat and boring. I feel that the factory scene could benefit from a bit more sunlight (I know its overcast) and you need to get some ambient lighting in there to give it a bit of contrast. In fact, I just looked at the rest of the scenes, and the lighting comment applies to them too. The lighting in your night time environment doesn't make any sense. It's obvious you placed a light in the scene but there is no light source, and it doesn't look like moonlight.

I'll also echo what Warby said in that you need to use more polies in a lot of your models. This isn't Half-life! Those pipes could be perhaps 32-sided; it's not that expensive to render more polys nowadays (but be sensible; don't go overboard without reason).

Keep at it bro, you'll get there eventually. Just keep working, and try putting your scenes into the new Cryengine; it'll render a lot nicer

[Ginio Beast]

Firstly Thank you guys for all your comments and I will address each one individually, secondly I'm making improvements to my portfolio as we speak, as for the common denominator you all highlighted; the lighting, the standard dominant directional lighting really did it no justice and made it all feel very mute so that's first port of call. Lastly I do value all your opinions greatly and thank you for taking the time out of your days to look at my work and pass on your professional insight.

e-freak: I'm using unreal now, I want to get into Cryengine 3 but I concentrated my efforts on unreal because I know that engine better, but now there's more documentation for it I think I'll go back and give it another go, thank you.

Warby: It is grey your absolutely right and the specular maps need highlighting more which is what I aim to. Also the pipes are of very low tessellation and it will be fixed, thank you.

HP: Some were developed on the course, others have been created after the course. Originally with the factory scene I was going for an overcast grim day in Soviet country, but I realise its what I wanted it to be not what it needed to be, the simplest things can be often forgotten, but never again.

I know my work has no artistic value and it kills me a little inside really, I come from a very artistic background and have a real passion for games, that's why I wanted to do this, its going to take me time to really find my stride and create something I can really be proud of, but what I was taught on my course is for entry level jobs is to demonstrate the ability to use the fundamentals effectively and consistently and as I gain experience and confidence, grow outwards. However I do appreciate what your saying and I need to apply more of my own taste to my work, thank you.

PogoP: I made a bit of a noob error with my normal maps just throwing them through Crazybump like that, I know they need more care which I didn't go back and correct when I had the time, never again. I was going for a grimy feel but it has been overkill and I'm now taking the time to tone down, which in turn has helped to brighten the whole scene up, thank you.

I hope if you have time over the coming days, you'll stop by and comment on any work in progress that you might have missed the first time or noticed anything new that might be useful for any tinkering or reworking, I more than welcome it.

Take care

oli

[PogoP]

A very humble response, good man! Keep on working dude, your attitude is perfect.

[e-freak]

what Pogo said - integrating feedback and improving on your skills is the best attitude Keep us posted on how it goes (and if you need any help or hints!)

[zeroy]

Some great stuff in there! Check your PM ...