Hi guys..All my buddies come here, so I finally decided to join the ranks as well...Some of you might even know from CGTalk.

Anyways..One of my compadres urged me to sign on and get crits from ya'll (So I guess you all come highly recommended from a professional in the industry.) Looking to get in myself...Without further delay...here she is








Thanks in advance

It looks pretty solid, I would like to see some of the textures and some wires as well to really be able to judge it.

What was this built in?

It looks pretty good, but we need some more information.

I don't think it's neccesary to show the wires, most of the stuff it's obvious how it is built without seeing them. I would change the bucket to make it look like an actual bucket and not make it so thick(looks to be about an inch thick) Some of the more saturated textures could also be less saturated I'm mostly thinking of the rusty stuff. I'd also make the bars on the dolly less thick as well, those are some beefy lookng bars and i would add a cut or two to make the rounded parts of the dolly round. the other stuff I've already told you.

Really nice feel to this. It reminds me of the mobile home I grew up in actually. There's some little nit picky things here and there. Color palette being one thing. It's also in the real early next gen/late last gen category. You could either down res some things and remove some normal maps or add more details to things to change that. But it's a great way to come over to PC with.

I'd say my biggest crit is your color usage, or more specifically, how little variation there is. That yellow truck is YELLOW OMG CANARIES GET OUT OF MY EYES yellow. Try working in more variation in the colors, using saturation changes, and taking any colors that are too bright and bringing them down a bit overall. Try to find photos of these objects in real life and match the saturation level and wear and tear. It's looking good overall, just needs a few tweaks.

welcome wayne. i would look a bit at your pallete like its been sugested. take your renders and paint over colors in photoshop to see how dif it would look with dif colors on stuff. and take a look to what objects you can res down in polys and add those to others like the dolly to get rid of some of the blocky feel of some objects. if you cant really get rid of some polys the just add to the ones that need it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] keep at it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

poop - sorry, WHICH yellow truck?

the first thing that jumped out at me was the mapping on the corrugated iron at the top of the first shot ... it's one of those things that goes "noooo! Fix me!" and brings the image down.

Nice though. I'm a real sucker for sheet metal

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poop - sorry, WHICH yellow truck?

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It's American dan [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

"1. any of various forms of vehicle for carrying goods and materials, usually consisting of a single self-propelled unit but also often composed of a trailer vehicle hauled by a tractor unit.
2. any of various wheeled frames used for transporting heavy objects."

Looks nice. I agree about the saturation issues.

danr: First image, the bright yellow thing as sometimes referred to as a truck.

WayneAdams: Saturation never hurt anyone and is totally valid for anyones portfolio. Poops right, I'd fix the satuation levels up as it isn't exactly consistant across the entire shot. Like I said though, saturation never hurt anyones portfolio. However, the piece has to support the colour values and I don't believe your subject matter and its artist style do this. I hope you don't mind but I spent a few minutes at lunch to do some post-production work to your image to show you how much farther you can run with this.



I desaturated the colour of the overall render slightly and changed the colour of sky to a more orange colour to help that skiddish feeling this set gives me. The sky was then desaturated further than the rest of the render. A vignette and colour noise was added to help the aged look of your scene.

Personally, I don't think doing post-production work does any portfolio harm. I believe it helps hugely if the first image they see "wows" them. Using some post-prod lovin' can do exactly that waaaaaay more than some in-app only renders (whootpy-doo). I'd try and make sure everything you doin in post-production isn't anything different than what games are doing these days. Everything I did to the shot, save the sharpening, is being done in current-gen titles. If you go this route, show some technical shots and texture flats as well so future employers can see that you've got the execution know-how to go along with some fancy Photoshop skills.

Hope this helps.

Let 'er rip!

I'd disagree, Brome and I think given that we're giving advice to this fella, that a rebuttal is reasonable to drop here. It is a topic that might be interesting to get everyones thoughts on though. I'll start a thread over in 2d and 3d shortly if it hasn't been already.

If you do decide to use post production on your portfolio, make sure you have a "clean" version without any fancy effects on your reel/site too. I'd be more inclined to tweak the textures and lights than to go with post-production filters for a portfolio piece. It makes it look like you know what you're doing and no one can wonder what you're hiding behind that grain and colour. For a non-portfolio piece go right ahead and udse all the fancy effects you like. I just think that in a portfolio, clarity on the work you've done is imperative.

You just hijacked it, turd burglar :P

"Do it this way and you would have very bad manners to dispute it."

Wayne I agree about the saturation points but it's generally not a good idea to add post processing effects unless that would be part of your role at a company you are applying at. Tantamount to adding lens flares I say! Crazy talk!

in the second image...i notice a tad over useage of normals. like in the AC window unit thingy and the dumpster. there is texture all over that thing, which from a far, probably won't matter. but since this shot is a little close up, it is really noticeable. also, the corrugated peices of the sturcture have no smooth surface...it's all normal noise. i understand that this thing is supposed to be worn. however, these metal peices i have mentioned started out as smooth objects. i'd smooth out certain places and leave the "worn" look in some of the other places. i'm basically saying just break it up a bit.

*i'd also reposition the large dumpsters. their location is not very believeable at this point. you could never get a truck in there to empty them.

I 2nd the dumpster comment fritz, don't know why I didn't notice that before. The dump truck would have an awful hard time getting those out of there.

yessir. also about the dumpsters...the mechanism that picks those things up has very large "forks" that stick into those hoop thingies on the side. i'd mainly concentrate on roughing up that area...like the dudes doing it kept bangin around and such. that would make it more believeable as well.

it's good to think "real world" wear and tear instead of just "wear and tear".

what i forgot to say tho, is that it is looking ver ver nice.

I removed the disclaimer crap and added my thoughts on post-production work above.

hi Wayne...

i think theres some good points above.

my main point would be that more of your props need some time spending on th etextures, esp the doors and chair. these points of interest hold your eyes, but theyre textures are plain.

prefer your lighting setup to adam brome paint over =P

Good scene. I agree slightly with the desaturations suggestion. I think Adam went too far desaturating it, but some objects could definitely be toned down. My thoughts were that some items seem too thin, like the dumpster lids and the steel panels.
Again, great work though.

Slightly off topic: Another name typically used for those 'trucks' is dollies. Truck sounds more manly though [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] And I agree, they are too bright.

Made some lighting and saturation changes...I like Adam's lighting...but its a little too silent hill for my taste...in contrast however, it does make mine a little too...i dunno...mario? So I've decided to compromise at a more stalker type of lighting...semi gloomy i guess...anyway heres a first crack at it (No post process)

yeah, much better. That's along the lines of wht I was thinking [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

those electric cables need a bit of sag.

Looking cool Wayne. One thing about paint too is its tendency to dry up and flake off especially in the presence of rust. There's alot of metal in this scene and not a whole lot of rust. That corrugated sheet metal would have swaths of rust even after only a few years out in the elements. Since your building seems to be intended to be a patchwork structure the metal probably came from some other building so I bet it's pretty old. The trashcans are looking on track. The rogue tires look like they just came off the assembly line though, not like baked rubber sitting in the sun for a couple years. The swamp coolers have very little rust around the connectors and seams.

http://www.mayang.com/textures/Metal...et_6190170.JPG

For the heavier steel pieces like the dumpster and the truck, I would expect some deeper rust and paint chips - especially on the dumpster. A good way to simulate paint chips is to use just white and make a layer of paint-chippey shapes, then use the same layer on your normal map and fill it with Clear to remove just a 1-pixel border around the chip shapes to make them look accurately sunken a hair. The normals you have on the swamp coolers looks very random. Maybe try a smoother finish but with rust and chipped paint. I've also never seen a swamp cooler built without rounded corners.

Also I would add some normals wood grain to those doors, window frames and eaves. My philosophy is that if you're going to detail a scene, get fast and go whole hog. Add a wide variety of wood grain normals in your personal library.

Also keep in mind that any time it rains on this scene, mud is going to splash UP.

I would model the walls out of separate pieces of iron sheets. This give you a much more interesting and natural profile even though it will add quite alot of polys. The bent pieces in the corners are a step in the right direction.

More dirt! More rot! More scrathes! Everything is too clean! Slap on some decals with an alpha and a dirt texture and add more dirt into the crevises. Maybe a dirtmap on a seperate uv channel could be an idea.

Put a little lean on that chainlink fence, it's way too straight and perfect for this scene.

The flat grass planes looks extremly weird, I would rotate them so that they more towards the sky.

More damage along the edges on the door textures.

The planks holding up the metal fence between the buildings looks too big and sturdy.

I would remove some of those objects (for now) and focus on getting the ones you keep better. I would keep the tire, truck, box, dumpster and gastube and really focus on them.
The tire looks good but do a dirty and used version. Right now it looks very pristine.
Sledgy has some good suggestions about the dumpsters. I would add a little more suble color variation (this goes for a lot of your textures) to it.

its an improvement, the windows bug me, they are too clean and reflective for the worn environment they are in

I agree with adam on the post production, you are selling yourself with images in a portfolio it needs to be the best of the best a final 'rendered' peice if you will. You can show textures/wires/etc as well but the beauty pass is what you wanting to sell.

Just my 2 cents..