[Portfolio] Scott Homer - Environment Artist
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen,
Im a 20year old 3D Games Art student (3rd year) at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, coming up to the end of my degree in a few months time. Once I finish I hope to obtain a junior position in a games company as an Asset artist/Environment artist. I've managed to pull everything together into a 90% completed portfolio, and a work in progress showreel. I was hoping that you guys could give me as much critique as possible in an effort to get my work to industry standard.
As a long time fan of polycount, i lurk around the forums on a daily basis and the time has come to do as many others before me have an have my portfolio/show reel torn apart! :poly122:
Id love some critique on my website aswell, usability, professionalism etc. Im thick skinned so you guys can go to town on it!
My showreel:
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jOkEPdLULs&hd=1[/ame]
My website can be seen over at: ScottHomer.co.uk
A selection of my work:
Thanks for taking the time to have a look at my work.
Scott
Im a 20year old 3D Games Art student (3rd year) at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, coming up to the end of my degree in a few months time. Once I finish I hope to obtain a junior position in a games company as an Asset artist/Environment artist. I've managed to pull everything together into a 90% completed portfolio, and a work in progress showreel. I was hoping that you guys could give me as much critique as possible in an effort to get my work to industry standard.
As a long time fan of polycount, i lurk around the forums on a daily basis and the time has come to do as many others before me have an have my portfolio/show reel torn apart! :poly122:
Id love some critique on my website aswell, usability, professionalism etc. Im thick skinned so you guys can go to town on it!
My showreel:
[ame]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jOkEPdLULs&hd=1[/ame]My website can be seen over at: ScottHomer.co.uk
A selection of my work:
Thanks for taking the time to have a look at my work.
Scott
Replies
Somebody pick this guy up.
Im 100% with you, im by no stretch of the imagination a great 2d artist (i was kinda pushed by my uni to include hand drawn artwork in my reel) Would you suggest removing it from my showreel/website completely, or working to get better at 2d before i start applying for positions?
Thanks for the advice Jdinges.
your presentation and quality is top notch, but i agree about the 2d. im sure you'll have no problem nabbing a job, good luck!
Cheers and good luck with the job hunt!!!
Why thank you, i hope i do nab a job! Althought not nabbing a job could be a good thing, if I was out of uni, without a job in games I think id really enjoy being able to work at a more relaxed pace, each other pieces above was pretty much made within 2 weeks (2 weeks for each piece) so im sure that if i spent a month on each they could be amazing!
Yeah, "school" (you Americans :poly122:) has been really tough, ive pretty much given up my entire life for the past 2 years especially, its been hairy at times but the rewards within the course are great. 3Dhit is the universities equivalent of PolyCount and they are really great for critism, and the praise and rewards (such as being front paged) make it all worthwhile. We are pretty luck to have great artists teaching us, in particular a cool guy who worked on Goldeneye for the N64 back in the day. (im not on commision, honestly!)
I hope things go well with the job hunt buddy, i haven't started applying yet, going to bide my time to fine tune things and then ill get stuck in, any advice on when to start applying?
Yeah, thats a great point, in the next revision of my reel ill ditch the life drawing stuff at the end, ive got alittle more games art (top secret!) to put into the reel so that can make way for it.
Thanks for the good wishes, looking forward to getting out there and seeing what is available.
(btw, i love the Psycho building on your site, completely thought it was a photo at first, great stuff).
Thanks for looking guys.
I've been told by a number of professionals that employers will look at your sketchbook sometimes before they look at your reel. Do what you can in that area, but just a heads up. That may call for some better drawings, but, since you're an environment artist, you might benefit just showing them orthogonal blue-print drawings with a straight-edge. I have no idea, though, I'm not in the industry so I can't say anything from experience.
I don't have a set list of places im going to apply to, working with someone like Crytek, Splash Damage, Rocksteady, Eurocom or Rockstar North would be incredible, its all down to who wants me really. Tbh id love to get an interview even if I didn't get a job, getting feedback and coming back bigger and better next time and blowing their socks off would be rewarding. Id love to move the US, but unless I marry an American (my girlfriend probably wouldn't like that) or I get a Masters its not very likely.
@Makkon, As much as it kills me that I essentially don't have the skills at present to put together any 2d work of an equal standard to my 3d, the idea of orthographic straight edge drawings in a sketchbook is a great idea. I actually trained as a draftsman for 3 years before getting into 3D, I even still have all the drawing boards etc. I will definitely begin doing that. I might take my best props, and begin sketching them out orthographically. Thank you for that, such a good idea.
Just my two cents off the top of my head! It's a good portfolio regardless, good luck.
EDIT: Pennsylvania, State of IndependEnce, surely?
Hey dude, you've got some great point, im taking a note of things to change for the next revision of my showreel! Funnily enough ive managed to get the apartment building down to 12k previously, and I cant for the life of me think why I didn't use this one instead of the 30k version, however I will make sure that in the next version of my reel I include the 12k version instead. I suspect the main reason is due to the fact that I have modelled the reverse side of the building. I will definitely sort that out though, cheers for pointing it out.
The buggy, I can see what you mean about the bevelling of the headlights, it would probably cut out a hundred poly or more, I kinda figured that seeing as the eye would naturally be drawn to the white headlights, having a little more geometry there, making sure its all smooth would be a fair use of polygons. I'm due to revisit that scene soon anyway, so ill make sure I take that into account. (ill post updates as they get finished)
The main reason I created the tomb raider scene pre-rendered was because everything else in my reel was realtime, and I wanted to give myself the best shot at the job market, putting something pre-rendered into my reel would leave the option of working in film or television open, I do agree that its not very obvious that its not realtime, I should perhaps make more of an effort to point that out. I have a fair bit of experience with UDK, and I reckon I could transfer the scene into UDK quite seamlessly, its all built in a fairly modular fashion. When I am done with uni, ill get straight on that one (abit of a hefty undertaking!)
Argh! the spelling mistake, ill make sure I sort that out a swell, (not a great deal of work, but it could've been pretty embarrassing in an interview!)
Thank you for taking a look at my stuff, ive got a good chunk of crits there, and I promise ill start working on rectifying those issues asap. Funnily enough, the sewer scene you have in your portfolio really inspired me in my second year of university, I created a piece inspired by it (didn't look much like it, but had a similar flavour!).
Peace, Scott
Also don't know if its on purpose but your twitter and facebook link just goes to the sites not a user
Good luck on the job hunting!
Very nice work, man. Best of luck!
Yeah, 100% agreement with you. Dont feel bad for ranting, im taking a note of everything you are saying and making sure that I get to making the changes straight away (im pretty anal about fixing crits so stay tuned) i have a pretty huge deadline at uni on Wednesday (hence why ive been sitting in this position for 20 hours putting together page after page of documentation) but as soon as that is out of the way I can focus on getting the meaty problems sorted out. I need to post the texture sheets for the buggy on-line too, ill get to that asap.
@Rick_D - good stuff bud, one thing: speed up that reel so it lasts about a minute - waaaay too slow and long for such interesting work. -
I agree with this, its difficult really, too fast and you don't get to see the wire frame etc and you are left none the wiser, too slow and its boring. Are there any good guidelines you can think of. I reckon I could do a condensed reel and a longer slower reel, we'll see.
@Striff - Yeah, I agree, ive got LODs of the Humvee (can be seen in the reel) of 40k and 20k. However they need to be shown off on my website, ill make sure I get some screen captures of those asap. I agree with you on the tomb scene. I'm ashamed of the quality of the statues to be quite honest, they are definitely not my best work, they are an organic shape and this is where my abilities lack. Not being a character artist, the idea of modelling a character falls out of my category completely (pretty shameful really) its on my to-do list right near the top but im glad you noticed. As for the poly counts, well I just tried to make everything look good in that scene more than anything. I think that rectifying the issues with the statues being so high poly (and so diabolically crap) ill be able to make it all look alot more unified. Keep posted for updates on that.
@KennyTies - The sketchbook is kind of work in progress atm, im modifying several word press scripts to try and get it working, and at present I dont have enough time to keep it updated. I should get rid of it for the time being, id rather not have potential employers thinking that I lack the ability to finish things that I have started. As for the Tomb Raider bit, you have a point, ill see if I cant re-jig the writing to make it come up. Good spot, you are freaky observant.
RIGHT. As I mentioned before things are a little hectic with uni atm, I have a massive hand in on Wednesday, and although im on-top of it, gotta do my final checks to make sure its all ready to be submitted. (yawn)
Whilst waiting for a video to encode today I sat writing up a list of what needs to be done on my show-reel and taking into account all of the critique ive received so far. I figured id post this up to prove to you all that its not falling onto deaf ears and ensure that each change gets done.
(ill make sure to keep this updated as things get rectified)
*EDIT* Thats right, Nusic, not music, NUSIC. Its what all the kids are listening to, dont you know?!
Thanks so much to everyone who is nit-picking, its hopefully going to enable me to get my reel upto standard!
how did you do the camera pans in marmoset ?
Actually, it was abit of a pain. My parents have a full HD tv, so i connected my laptop to the tv, and was able to full screen it and capture it at full HD. The showreel is half hd (720p) so i had a fair bit of extra video each side of the 720p video. I just moved the shots around to create the pans in After Effects. Simple really!
Heya Raul, im a big fan of yours (you ever seen Zombieland, when Woody Harrelson meets Bill Murray and he's like "BILL FUCKING MURRAY" I kinda have that whole thing going on atm) so thanks for taking a look at my work. Id have to say that this is where my mind set is at the moment in regards to the polycounts, I have created LODs of 40k and 20k which can be seen in my reel, however the 60k version would obviously apply to a hero vehicle. Ive tinkered around with GTAIV in the past and their vehicles are around 50k polygons with several lods of course. Id rather have the model at 60k and look cool, than at 20k and not include the interior (which is fully modelled). That being said, i've been called up on it hundreds of times so I need to make sure that I pimp the shit out of the 40k and 20k versions. Cheers for the input Raul, i read somewhere that you are at ID now right? Hows that working out for you?
Just to treat everyone to alittle WIP i took a break from some university stuff im tackling at the moment (Dissertation, groan) to start a prop for the base of the Golf Cart that im going to soon revisit to make the changes suggested above. No prizes for guessing what it is :P
The only thing i'd say about the reel is what's already been said, drop that 2d stuff at the end and maybe quicken the pace of the video a little. I dunno if it's the actual pacing or the slow music that's maybe doing it, but i was skipping through to see the work at the end.
Minor nitpicks though. Besides what's already been said and you've already taken on board i have no more crits, everything seems really solid
I liked your Golf cart most, it had the most individual style out of the pieces in your portfolio. It'd be really good to see more of these pieces as they are the type of pieces that allow you to show what your imagination is capable of rather than what your attention to detail is capable of replicating.
Theres a lot of replication skills required, but after a while you are going to get hungry for more invention in your diet so its good to be working toward that early on so you could perhaps start somewhere that pushes invention more than replication.
I expect the course you took pushed you towards the choices you made though? Aiming for what is more commonly done isn't a bad strategy for a course to teach, but its good to show you can do less commonly done styles also. I know that when I look at someones work, I want to see what is theirs, not what is the worlds, I look for individual style and invention.
An ability to replicate real world forms is a great skill; being able to apply them to invented structures is the highest ideal though.... well for some of us I suppose
Like everyones mentioned, you ought to drop the 2d stuff, it's not your strength and you are only as strong as the weakest piece in your portfolio. Don't worry about it though, no one cares when you are an environment guy, not often a priority for a character guy or level designer either really, its generally just about the assets you can make in 2d/3d apps in the games industry.
Its cool if you can do 2d too, like an extra fancy spoon being given alongside your expresso... sure, we'll use it, but we care about the coffee.
Also, polycounts are high everywhere, this ought to be sorted out ASAP, especially if you have 12k versions of that building for instance. Experience is partly just code for demonstrating that we are aware of the cost of things, everything you build costs the engine rendering time, lower polycounts and inventive reuse of textures demonstrates an awareness of this.
It's a strong portfolio for a college guy and you have a great attitude which will take you as far as the quality of the work if you can keep it
Thanks for taking a look at my stuff, id have to agree that one of my favourite pieces is the Golf Cart, it was a nice feeling making something a little more unique and not having to use a whole bunch of reference. I would love to redo my reel with a little more imagination, however when I was putting together each piece I was thinking more about what would make me employable to a potential employer, rather than what would satisfy my own artistic itches. I do have a pretty good imagination, i should perhaps let it out of my head from time to time.
I'm glad that 2D art ability isn't going to halt my career in its tracks, believe it or not i was once pretty good at drawing, but the past 3 years of being chained to a computer with ridiculously tight deadlines has left me pretty much unable to relax and draw and I guess as with most things it has escaped me. Ill make sure i cut that out of my reel.
Now i have handed that work in i have a couple of days to focus on making changes, so as of tomorrow morning ill be revisiting the pieces that I need to change and making all the changes listed over the topic. Gotta crunch those polycounts right down!
I finished off a little high poly thing ive been working on, took about 2 hours, something nice and simple to fill up abit of spare texture space in the golf cart scene. Ill be baking out/texturing it shortly. Updates will follow!
Was considering putting it underneath the golf cart, perhaps lifting the front up to remove one of the wheels..
Ive finished the car jack and put it together with the golf cart. Ive fixed some problems with the golf cart that where mentioned in previous posts. These include removing non essential polygons around the headlights, 3 loops to be exact. Ive reduced the polycount on the golf bag, lowered the texture res aswell.
I feel pretty happy to have had the opportunity to model a car jack, ive been thinking of making one for a while and I took the opportunity to put one together. phew, that itch is gone.
Great work and good luck on the job front.
@HP I hope so! Crytek have long time been a dream of mine, howre things going over there? I managed to play Crysis 2 at Eurogamer late last year, was really impressive, looked stunning!
@Paul - Cheers dude, alot of blood sweat and tears went into everything. The long story involving why there isn't a fly-through involves me finishing the scene ready to be rendered and splitting the scene into its various passes and going to bed at around 5am. The next day i woke up and began to set each pass off. Suddenly, the harddrive that the files where on failed, and i lost the previous nights work (lukily i had backed everything up). So wanting to resurrect my hdd, i brought a new harddrive enclosure and put the harddrive together in hopes of salvaging it. I plugged it into my laptop and then BANG, the laptop has also broken. This left with me only my main rendering Rig, so and the deadline was 4 days later. Jist of it, there wasnt enough time to render out the passes that i wanted to and i just decided to render out a huge 4k shot, and do a simple camera projection in after effect. Yes its dirty, yes its cheap, but i got the work handed in on time and thats all that mattered. Once ive fixed the critique that ive had on this thread, ill sort out rendering a full camera move, ill have my repaired laptop by then so rendering the whole thing out shouldnt be too much of a pain.
Sorry for the rant, just thought i would justify the lack of camera move. Thanks for taking a look at my stuff, i agree with you 100%.
Tonight ive been updating my website, adding some new information. Im alot happier with it, any thoughts?
(also i apologise to anyone experiencing any problems navigating tonight, i was swapping things around and changing some of the code.
Cheers for the kind words and messages.
We have a lot of vehicles in some of our games so we need to keep the textures small and reuse then when possible, and let the shaders do the bulk of the work.
Your bins, fire escapes and chimney vents are too clean. Add some wires to the building - electrical and TV.
Thanks for the advice Rick, ill get to fixing the building right away.
A little something something i'm putting together, ill be releasing for free once i'm done with creating about 10 of them.
any thoughts?
I managed to cut down the building by a wopping 20,000 polygons. Phew, I think I managed to achieve it without losing any details too. I also dirtied bits up, as per crits.
Onto my next crit to fix!
Wires, cracks and stuff i think. ive deleted a couple of little bits, so i have managed to free up some texture space!
@Ben (S_purs) - Heya buddy, its about time you got on here, join the media revolution!
@aajohnny - Thanks for taking a look at my website/work, ill get some wireframes asap, im currently working on a lower poly version of the humvee (addressing crits from previous posters). Cheers for your kind words, i appreciate it
@ImyJ - Cheers man! The fact you work at Crytek makes me infinately jealous. thanks for taking a look, good luck with Crysis 2, ive played it, and boy its good.
@Nalwayv - Thanks dude, ill get those wireframes as soon as.
Right, Ive taken a break from addressing crits, and continued to work on some other stuff helping out people with their final major projects at Uni. I am creating several weapons for a trailer being created by one of my housemates, so here is the first. Still WIP, it all opens up and everything is pretty much accurately modelled, with a couple of little personal touches. About 18 hours work. Ill be creating a low poly version and texturing it very soon, i may even drop it into a games engine if I get time.
Any Crits would be appreciated!
Since it's kinda late here and i am nearly fainting from the lack of sleep, i might have seen wrong... but there seams to be a smoothing error here.
I low polied, baked and textured the gun over the weekend (I wasnt happy with it until recently so I didn't put it up out of shame). Its not finished yet, I wanted to add a couple of details so you guys are more than welcome to add any inputs you can, it would be most appreciated.
Im struggling to decide which camo looks best on the barrel, i figured you guys would be able to decide which one looks the best, so i thought id leave the choice to you guys!
Cheers, Scott
As for the M79, I think you have gone way over board on the grunge. There is not real material definition on the wood apart from the colour. I would probably also lose the camo on the barrel, because right now it pretty much drowns in high frequency detail.
If you do keep the camo design, I like the urban one best
+ Tdub I love the urban one too, so i think ill be keeping it.
Thanks for the insight guys, you've really picked up on something i hated!
Ill post wires later.
Your work is looking awesome, some great highpoly stuff on your site Sean.