Portfolio critique

Personal Work
#1

I was wondering what I could improve upon and potentially add to my portfolio to help bolster it.

https://www.artstation.com/poulift/albums/886336

Any appreciation would be greatly appreciated!

#2

Hey! I had a look and came up with a couple of things in no particular order. This is all very subjective

In general…

  • Consider cutting a reel, this current format of having a video on each separate page makes for a lot of clicking
  • I think you should remove or separate the pieces that aren’t VFX - makes the portfolio a bit more focused oops I didn’t realize there was a VFX album, just link people straight there!
  • Personally I dislike seeing tutorial pieces and think they should be removed, but if you really want to keep them then I’d at least add an attribution or acknowledgement
  • Out of all your pieces only one has an environment, which makes it super difficult to tell what’s actually going on. Not only are the pieces going to be stronger, but the feedback you elicit is also going to be more apt if people can easily tell what the point of the effect is. I say it a lot, and I’m gonna say it even more: context context context! It’s effects for games, so put the effects in a game!

As for specific pieces…

  • The waterfall feels overall flat - the values are too opaque to feel photorealistic but not opaque enough to give it a stylized feel. Without an environment it’s difficult to figure out the context, but considering the travel time it feels like it should be pretty large - no matter the size of a waterfall, the water falling always vaporizes to some degree before hitting the bottom, so maybe try fading out the mesh earlier and adding more mist near the bottom. The noisy mesh at the bottom also feels too opaque and mismatched with the rest (I’m guessing you got the idea here but that use-case is a lot more stylized than your piece). Overall I’d suggest you look up some video reference of a real-life waterfall and try to match it closer.
  • The explosion is uhhh @Partikel’s tutorial yeah? Not much to say, maybe try and add more bits and pieces to make it your own. As for the smaller impact, it’s fine I guess? It doesn’t communicate anything, so it’s hard to say more without seeing it in context or knowing what it’s used for
  • The fire looks nice but it’s a bit weak as a standalone piece - it feels like it should be part of a larger project. Take an entire environment and make it come alive with VFX; lanterns, mist, fountains, weather, falling leaves, etc etc - environmental VFX is incredible and make a boring environment become jaw-dropping, but it requires a lot more than just a single effect. It’s not something you see a lot of in reels either, so it’s a good way to make yourself stand out.
  • The ring has a really solid start but the dissipation feels lacking, something with that much anticipation should have a lot more punch to it. Again, since it’s just on a plain background, it’s hard to tell what the effect is trying to communicate.
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#3

Thanks a lot for the time you took to look over my pieces, I’ll be sure to try and implement these suggestions and keep them in mind for future projects

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