Over the next few weeks I will begin to create my portfolio website and showreel; therefore it is a good idea for me to look at work I have made in the past, to see if any of it is good enough to show to the industry.
The first major piece of work I did in a game engine was my CAT scanner prop, from my first year Computer Games Modelling module. While I was pleased with how this turned out at the time, the quality of texturing and baking on the model isn’t up to the quality I would want to show to someone I was applying to for a job. There are a lot of texture seams, and the materials don’t quite look like they should. On top of reworking the textures, I would have to remodel and relight the scene the model is placed in, which is a lot of work. On that basis, this piece will not go into my portfolio:
Another piece of work I spent quite a lot of time on was the spaceship I made for my Applied Game Art Development module in second year. This served the purposes it was required to adequately, however, it was to be seen from quite far away in the game it was placed in. From close up, and as a show of detailed modelling work, it is not a great example. I am not very experienced with high-poly, hard surface modelling, and so this ship’s normal map isn’t as high quality as a hard-surface model’s should be. As well as this, most of the rest of my portfolio is likely to be organic modelling, and so this model would stand as an ‘odd one out’ in the midst of my current work. For those reasons, my ship will not go into my showreel or portfolio:
Finally, a model I am quite pleased with the outcome of was the dinosaur I sculpted for my Real-Time Rendering module last year. There are some problems with seams on the specular map for the model, which I would need to fix in order to be able to create a turntable for the model, and I would need to create a scene or background to show it on. However, with a small amount of work I believe that I could make this piece of work presentable in a portfolio or showreel. When I have the time, I will fix the problems with this model and make it ready to show in my portfolio or showreel, if it is needed.
