Critique my portfolio!

Post by **redfella** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 5:49 pm

I created a portfolio a couple weekends ago... I figured it was time to stop goofing off and attempt to get a job in the industry. I figured I needed a snazzy portfolio, so I put one together fairly quickly.

Just looking for feedback; ya know, comments, impressions, critique. Thanks.

Post by **Xenethyl** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:04 pm

You did a very nice job putting together your portfolio, redfella. If I were to make any changes to your site, however, I would make the banner a little more exciting and I would also increase the size of the large (non-thumbnail) screenshots. Right now the banner serves its purpose of being a header to your portfolio. Although, personally, I think it would make your portfolio look more exciting and interesting if you were to maybe add a close-up screenshot from one of your maps to the background of the banner or maybe a wireframe view of one of your maps. It's just an artistic change but I think it would improve the overall look and feel of your portfolio. Also, as I mentioned before, I would increase the size of your full-screen screenshots. If your portfolio is representing your abilities in the field of level design then you want to give potential employers the highest quality and most detail in all of your screenshots. You may also want to use anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering, but I know there are different guidelines for that sort of thing (for instance some companies don't use these enhancements for their screenshots because it would be giving gamers a false impression of what the game really looks like) so it's really your call.

Of course these comments are just my two cents, your portfolio looks nice just the way it is.

Post by **Fjoggs** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 6:50 pm

yeah, i was gonna comment that aswell. Just say that you created everything apart from "..." ;]

Post by **H.Reaper** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:14 pm

Damn,

Really good Portofoilio you have there Red.

didn't know you were able to do such nice things =P

You are not so bad in fact...

Post by **Lenard** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 9:56 pm

Your screens all look a little washed out too. Your maps look way better than that in game. Go all the way quality-wise with the screens. By the way, I love Sedona. That is such a great map.

Post by **Shallow** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:55 pm

The screens look like they have been lightened up by using Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast (or the equivallent adjustment layer). This does usually tend to produce a washed-out look because it destroys the blacks by brightening the whole of the image's colour range. A better method is to use Image > Adjustments > Levels and tweak the middle arrow on the slider slightly, this brightens the image but does a better job of preserving the tonal range (the blacks are still black). Or even better a Levels adjustment layer instead.

Successive applications of image adjustments tend to trash the histogram and cause banding and random discoloured spots, so always use adjustment layers and save a PSD for future tweaking as well as your JPEG image for publishing.

Er, obviously if you're not using PS you'll have to translate that to the appropriate local terminology of your chosen app.

Post by **FragaGeddon** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 11:34 pm

One recommendation for your site.
If you want the screen shots opened in a seperate window, have a left and right arrow to view other pics of that map.

Or have a click to close option when viewing a picture.

Edit: Also center the image(s).

Post by **redfella** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:50 am

Thanks for the tips Shallow. Unfortunately, I didn't save the orginal images in PSD format. However, I may go back in and reshoot the shots using a higher res (as Xenethyl mentioned), and then save em as PSD. Thanks for the tips guys.