another demo reel , oh joy

[tadpole3159]

ok heres the deal.
i want a job in a game / film studio as general modeller and texture artist.
here is the latest build of the demo reel, please help me make it better so i can steal your jobs please

I'm on a family istart Packard bell, rendering is a problem. if i say i cant re render a piece again its cause my comp is a steaming pile of ..... you know. but if enough of you spot a problem and agree on it being a big problem i will re render

its a 5mb .mov file with HEAVY compession.
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please help

[Lord Ravensburg]

Well, the 1st thing that really jumped out at me was you spent a little to much time showing Edward. I would cut that part down by a couple of seconds. The second thing was that on the train the wheels were turning backwards... Plus as a suggestion try adding smoke coming out of the smoke stack... Also I would dump the still shots of the train. I loved the Raptor. I thought it looked really good. One more suggestion would be to move the stills to the front and then transition to the animated models...

All and all it looked pretty good to me... But it you disagree feel free to ignore me.

[InProgress]

I agre with LR on the whole Edward thing. Second, you should remove the "dividers" between two pieces. Third: if you want to be a general modeler at a game studio, you have to have some low poly stuff. I also thing that It's pretty hard to see the wiremesh on some pieces.

Off-topic: How's your game coming along?

[tadpole3159]

Lord Ravensburg:
ok train reversed, not an easy task :S

i was playing with smoke but it sucked so that got canned, every one was looking at the lame smoke

edward cut down to size, he is 28 seconds now

gonna try to stills when i file the damn frames, why are computers so lame at finding things?


InProgress:
i have one more piece to include (attachments) i'm waiting for the texture, the group im modelling it for wanted there texture guy to do the textures *sniff* what ever i take take a hint :'(
he is high poly but i will also show off my low poly model with normal map and textures. dont worry i will say texture work aint mine

emancipal is on hold over the holidays :@ <angry face
and project rise (recruitment thread Waking Hour mod team require texture artists ) is VERY VERY exciting, the alpha stuff rocks
thats what this model is for (attachments) im thinking of cancelling emancipal, gonna focus on rise and getting a job

[tadpole3159]

ok done everything

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hows it now?

[eagle4]

hey mate, you've got some realyl great stuff in there. however, there are some things that i think you need to have a think about. you're wanting a job in games, there didnt apear to be any low poly modeling there at all. your modeling skills are definately solid enough, but i think you need to work on the presentation and timing of your reel. with the train, it sits there doing nothing but having the wheels turn for a bit. you could try having it that long, but about half way fade it to show a shaded wireframe of it.

for the dinosaur, it looks really awesome mate, your topology seems really clean and tidy (employers love that) however i reckon you can do the same thing as with the train, as he's running, fade it to a wireframe model which is also running. this kills 2 birds with one stone, it shows off your wireframe as well as your model, and it also dosnt waste time by showing it later on. with that model, i see you've used meshsmooth on it, how does it look without the meshsmooth? could it be a really cool low poly dino?

I recomend making some objects, weapons or characters more focused on games, and when you do, show your texture too. its important for an employer to see how you can use texture space the most efficiently. a way of showing this could be have your model up looking amazing, and int he corner is the texture map.

one thing i have seen others do which works also, (could be used for your first character) is have the main model rotating on the left of the screen, taking up most of the space, andon the right have 3 pannels stacked ontop of each other (think the intro to the brady bunch) all showing close ups of the cool parts of the model, like the head. this way you can cut down the time you are showing the model, it felt like you were trying to drag it on a bit to fill up time.

The stil images you showed at the end were really good, however, they really dont fit the game idea you're going for. also you dont show wireframes or give any specs.

The breaks in the middle are kind of annoying, i recomend short soft fades between scenes. I recomend having a simple (aka less busy) image at the start that says its your demoreel, and has contact information, you really dont need a youtube and reeldump username there, all you really need is phone number, e-mail and website if you have one. then use it again at the end of your demoreel, that way if your employer wants to contact you at the end of the demoreel he can, also if he puts it down and comes back to it its at the beginning, you want to make it easy for the employer to contact you, however you dont want to make it too in your face.

on mine i did the start and finish images with my details on them, but i also included a photo of myself on the final image, to try to make it a bit more personal. not sure if that works or not, but it could be something to think about.

you said you're looking for a job in the game/film industry, these are very different (as you probably already know) so i would recomend making a seperate demoreel for each industry. you also said you want to be a general modeler, you really need to focus a bit more, do you want to be environmental modeler, then make some props, like bins, park benches, trees, buildings. if you want to do characters then just do chracters like your first guy and that dino, they are great. if you want to do vehicles then do vehicles. employers would rather employ a specalist rather than a jack of all trades. try to keep that in mind

best of luck mate, I look forward to hearing how you go

eagle4

[tadpole3159]

wow awesome post + rep for being awesome!!

now down to business, the raptor's wireframe animation is rendering right now. i dont think i can make him low poly as he REALLY isn't, but i can make the guy i posted above me low poly...as he is low poly i'll just stick his normal map on him

the project breakers (the images with the youtube stuff and contact info) have been redone with a plain white background and are at the front, i figure the viewer can see all my models straight away in this 10 second slide show. its very nice.

the trains wireframes are going to be a bit harder but i think i can do it, vector render wireframes or something.

the stills at the end are the stuff i have either been payed to do or that i have done badly, either huge cock up on the wireframes or renders take 10 mins to render a frame. nothing really to show off there.

i have loads of low poly stuff from my games i could make a separate game demo reel i guess. most of them are characters like the one i uploaded above me and they all look the same, power suit, power suit, big power suit, bigger power suit....blah blah

now the video effects, i am useing nero vision. i cant do anything but fade really students are poor creatures.

rendering will take a day of so to do...:S see ya then

[tadpole3159]

wow the raptor rocks, about 1 min per frame :P

click me for demo reel

just need to add the train wireframe which will take a day or two to do so while im rendering i'm gonna edit the existing demo reel on my bro's laptop

[eagle4]

ok mate, some definate improvements, with the train, I reckon you can get rid of the first bit where it just sits there with the wheels spinning, you could have the wheels spinning as you are flying the camera around it, kill two birds with the one stone

As for your intro image, you have the 3d work change, personally i'm not a fan, i would recomend keeping your favourite image there and you could shorten it to about 3 seconds instead of 5 (but this is totally up to you) its great that its much cleaner now, i can easily read your information and its not at all distracting

"the stills at the end are the stuff i have either been payed to do or that i have done badly"

if you've done something badly then DONT show it on your reel. your reel will be pulled down because of it (like how you dont have smoke with your train cause you couldnt do it right and everyone was looking at the bad smoke, not how awesome your train looks, same deal)

otherwise its looking really good mate. some great stuff there.

eagle4

[tadpole3159]

i kept the stills in there because they look great from the angle i rendered them but rotating then or showing wire frame would make it look really bad. and the little blue guys are from my first freelance job, its a website mascot nothing much to it, simple mesh, simple rig

train wire frame complete i merged it with the spinning wheels one. pretty cool. anything else you can think of?

V latest version V

click me for demo reel