Suggestions needed for portfolio - monday deadline
 

People, I have a problem.

I have been looking to get into jobhunting mode of late, and this began in earnest last week when I applied for the position of cgi artists assistant at a place near me in essex. After some rush rewrite on my cv, about 2 hours editing my cover letter, and rearranging my portfolio, I sent off the application.

I was thrilled, relieved, happy, and excited, when on wednesday I got a phone call from the recruitment company saying that they really liked my stuff, and were forwarding my application to the company. He asked if I had any other work I could take to an interview, and though I said the best of what I had was in my portfolio, I had a couple of other bits and some pencil portraits. He said there main goal was someone with artistic flair and he thought I fitted the bill.

So far, fingers crossed. Today, however, I got a call from the guy saying the company was keen to see more, but something along the lines of a car/vehicle, or some more technical sculpture. If I could put together something great over the weekend?

The line from the company was that my profile was more that of a 'keen hobbyist rather than a desired cgi artist' . I completely understand this, but I have two days now to try and produce some work that can make them think otherwise. Does anyone have any suggestions? Technical sculpture? Im thinking mobile phone, boat, helicopter? Something photoreal? Should I make 1 big thing or try and do two or three smaller projects? Im working all weekend so considering just not sleeping to do this work. What would an employer want to see?

Ben

Really pleased for you mate! Sounds like they're asking a lot for an 'assistant' position though??? I still think it worthwhile to take your pencil sketches along, as it shows artistic ability and the ability to see and record what you see!

Anyway, to make things easier have you thought about doing something architectural but still sculptural? If you need to do a smaller object I'd aim for something you know you'll be able to complete in two days...I don't know if a car is achievable but remember you don't have to model what you won't see! ;) What about a racing bike or a scooter (Vespa?) ?

Anyway, good luck with whatever you do!

J

Im with half loaf the quickest thing you can do in two days is archviz stuff

Hi Ben
Good to here your news, do some thing that you know well, I go fishing for pleasure and to model a fishing reel would be easy for me because I understand how it works..........hope that helps dave

One idea would be to make something up, (i.e. not a real vehicle or object) a concept phone or ship or something. That way you could include only as much detail as you have time for and they won't be comparing it to the real thing. On the other hand, sometimes creating a convincing concept is hard and time consuming.

If your interview is on monday, I would highly recommend getting some sleep over the weekend. I'm sure the interview would go worse if you have a great portfolio but aren't able to function or communicate :p

Anyway, congrats on your progress and good luck with the rest of it!

Well done Ben!! I agree with the guys...get some sleep and I would suggest (no joke)..a calm walk in the morning in a good environment for half an hour. This will clear your head and maybe you will see something you can model very quickly.

Me personally...I would go for a house or similar...its something you can do very quickly. Or something like one of my instruments...very quick..easy but technical in a way.

Good luck whichever way the tide takes you my friend...I envy you.

cheers bullet

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I have no interview, apparently this place puts applicants under 3 categories, accepted, rejected, or reserved, as in not quite there but we wont shut the door on them.

I wouldnt envy me ant, I feel like ive dug a bit of a hole for myself. To be fair to myself I had no way of knowing when I applied what kind of work this place did. Now knowing who it is, I think im out of my depth, looking at their stuff, its out of my league. Perhaps I should pick more carefully where to apply in future, or perhaps I am just a hobbyist. I guess theres a reason ive always leant towards the game art side of cg. I dont know whether to hold my hands up to this guy and say thanks for the feedback, but its not for me, and use it to help make some decisions about what I actually want. Or will I regret that. Damn I feel stuck.

Hey man, I wouldn't pull the plug on this yourself. If you do the best you can, and they feel you're not quite suited for the work they're doing, well that's all you can do. However, if they do offer you a job, it means they think you have what it takes based on what they see.
The way I see it (and I might be missing something) you're not losing anything by going for this, besides maybe a bit of "wasted" effort and some pride, however if you do back out, who knows, you might have been doing better than you figured.

At the end of the day it's their call whether you're "in over your depth" and even if you are, they're not going to phone everyone else and say "don't hire this guy". They obviously have liked the work you've done. Does that make any sense?

Of course, on the other hand, if you don't want to do the kind of work they do, give it a try (if offered the chance) and make sure you don't like it, then you can always try for something else.

Well I do envy you mate!!! you have a chance to do what you want to do in life....like a lot of people on here. Me...I have the artist within..but I chose construction when I was young...had to...bills needed to be paid.

I have never had the oppurtunity to go to school/college/work in this industry...and never will. I have just finished 5 hours of walking through swampy paddock to map a terrain...nearly snapped my ankle 10 times etc etc. So yeh mate I do envy you...

A little advice from an old warhorse mate....always do a little research on the company, its goals and direction and of course its business nature (ie what it does). You dont have to do a Sherlock Holmes but a little knowledge will go well in an interview.

Personally Im not one for Diploma's/certificates etc...no disrespect to the people who work hard to earn them..to me they mean nothing. Its whats between your ears (yes you Ben) and what YOU can do that is important to me as an employer. Trust me when I say I have interviewed hunreds of people mate...and its not neccessarily the Dux of the school that wins. Its the person with confidence, knowledge of the tasks and above all...enthusiam.

As the other guys pointed out...its an ASSISTANT to an artist...so this is in effect an apprentice situation. Give the employer what you have...they will judge whether or not you are suitable. BE HONEST and go with the flow.

As you said..3 directions..accepted = good, learning time. Rejected = feedback and more study. Reserved = feedback, more study and choices for you. In all NONE of them should be negative Ben...take any 3 by the horns and ride like a demon with a hard on. Life gives you oppurtunities...dont knock them back because you are afraid. I did and now Im just a Surveyor...my time is gone..yours isnt.

Now I have vented....good luck mate...Ant

LOL stwert good advice...are we psychically connected lately??? every time Im typing so are you LOL :beer:

Cheers again guys, theres some good advice in there which makes sense.

In the job securing portfolio I was given the link to, there was walk, talk and run cycle animation, some examples of compositing, match moving, and some product viz animations of a camera and a phone. So I have gone for making my phone. Im about a third of the way through modelling. The aim is to get a good, solid, technical model, and then give some nice reflective lighting and material makeover. My phone is a sony cyber shot phone, with a screen that slides up and a sliding camera shutter on the back. If I have time and if I am able I might try and animate a pan around camera with the moving bits of the phone sliding open. Hopefully I can then send that and the animated matte painting camera move I did back in spring...

Sounds great, good luck!

Sounds good....good luck mate!

cheers bullet

nice one, i would have suggested a phone too.
a camera move around the phone may turn out less exiting than if you moved the phone around with a static camera. you can have it rotate fast or slow and have it rotate in a bunch of different axis. it might make it seem more interesting than a straight turntable.

btw, what is the company? what kind of work do they do?

Hadnt thought of it like that hammer. Cheers. At the rate im going I should be looking to animate on thursday. Hoping youd chip in, ex art grad turned cgi artist n all.

Forgive me for feeling tentative about posting the name of the place. I fear someone with more experience and expertise may read this and attempt to 'pull the rug from under my feet'. They are an advertising agency though.

Almost done modelling now. Got a couple of seam issues here and there to fix and the camera lens and shutter on the back, a couple of buttons etc, but another day should see the modelling done.

hey man, i just animated an example and playblasted it, but can't figure out how to convert an image sequence to a .mov in linux.
i'll do it at home later.

looks good so far.

Ah, nice one! Hope you get it converted.

Im within sight of the end of the modelling I think. But there's one part which I've not been sure of since the start, and that is the camera lens, and flash light on the back of the phone. Would it be better to try and get right in there and model these parts... the bulbs, the perspex, the lens, and lens casing, or would a found texture be enough for this?

Below is a post of the back of my phone. Below that, is a picture of the phone Im modelling, where you can see the parts I mean, the lens and flash etc.

Example....

I'd model the camera lens as it looks indented quite a ways, so a texture based wouldn't look as good especially if it's rotating.

Yeah, looking back, it was a bit of a stupid question I guess. Have modelled the lens and casing now, just some buttons and the flash to go.

pleased with how this is coming along. I was really worried Id have loads of issues with artifacting off of dodgy topology. But thankfully I don't think it's an issue. Unless any one thinks otherwise? Still a couple of buttons to make and some textures to put on.

That looks good ben could you show a wire shot.......thanks dave

Yeah, cheers dave. Been meaning to ask this for a while...theres a way of rendering a wirefame shot isnt there, rather than just taking a screen grab?

wire.......couldnt the vector render to do it properly, it triangulated the mesh. Viewport it is.

Hi Ben
Is there a tutorial that you learned to do this sort of modelling, I have not realy done any thing like this.............dave

Not really. The way I have modelled this is pretty similar to how I do most non-organic stuff, just it's more involved, like, I've had to have more patience. I'd say if there's one tutorial more than any other that taught me how to model hard stuff, it's the apache one off this site. I always think of that tutorial as the one that really taught me to understand edge looping, and edge flow, to get smooth edges. For this phone though, there's nothing really too tricky I would say. It took me a few attempts to start with, but once Id reminded myself how to use the bevel tool (and that it existed, generally) I was away. Thats how I did the wide smooth corners on the main thumb pad bit in the middle, and at the four corners of the phone as a whole. The rest was just common sense stuff.

use toon shader or contour shader for wire frame. if you google toon shader wire frame script or something there are probably a tonne of them.

Cheers Hammer.

I have a problem Ive not come across before, to do with planar mapping. I thought itd make it easier to just planar map my textures onto this, as Im not really using many, just some numbers and logoss here and there. I have like the 'sony' bit on the front, and the 'cyber-shot', below it. But when I spin the phone around, I see the textures being projected onto the back to. Is their a fix for this, or a way to stop it happening?

Make sure you apply your material to only one side before doing the planar map.

2 days to go on this. come on ben, wake up mate, lets go...

think/hope i get what you mean stwert. cheers



p.s.......dave, was thinking, i really would recommend the apache tutorial. it also shows a way of working using proxy models. that one tutorial taught me how to understand the relationship between unsmoothed and smoothed surfaces, and ever since its been the kind of conceptual approach to modelling that i have used. it also demonstrates 'snaps' very well, particularly 'v-snapping', which is the one of the single best maya techniques ive ever learned yet which i dont see being covered in many places, and which...i think...is crucial to hard surface modelling . i never finished the apache, but the two or three techniques/ideas i learned while doing what i did have always stayed with me. must be about two years to the month since i did that.

Thanks Ben
I thought that the apache tutorial was subd, I have been looking for a tutorial that shows the diffance between hard and soft edge modelling for a long time and its been under my nose all this time..............LOL.......dave

ps. am down loading as I post

I hope I haven't overtalked it. Hope you get as much from it as I did.

Thats OK Ben I had a lot of point that I have not used, only going to download the modelling part.............dave

planar mapping is just a start for UVing, if you planar map a cube in z axis, then apply a texture with a dot on it. the dot will appear on both sides of the cube in the z axis.

planar projection, projects the dot. so if you move the camera projection node it will move the dot around the surface. you can project the dot anywhere on any plane, by positioning the projection node.

this would be better with pictures.

I get you I think Hammer. I always just use automatic uvs, but as I just had some logos and stuff and it was all pretty flat surfaces I thought I could get away with a planar. What I did in the end was just, instead, where I had been using say, one black plastic material, and one silver metal material for all the black and silver parts, I duplicated a new version for each part that had a texture. Seemed to do the trick. I much prefer working with materials rather than uvs.

So, although it looks like there's just one main black colour all over, theres really 5 or 6 black shaders on there. Perhaps this was the long route.

I created a quick animation of my phone. It's about as basic as it gets, but as I want to send it off tomorrow a.m, I did what I thought I knew how, and what I could get done by tonight, without messing anything up. I should have pushed myself harder, maybe put in some ease-ins and out's or something, or had the camera flashing. But it's ok. There are two more CG society courses I'd like to do (Nuke Compositing, and Photorealism in Mental Ray), but I think I need to add an animation one on top of that too. I'm uploading the animation to my Vimeo account at the moment, will post a link when it's done.

This is the link to the video on Vimeo. Bit jerky, 'quality video hosting'...hmmm...


anyway http://www.vimeo.com/15035192

let me know what you think.

I like....looks like an ad to me LOL. I dig the scene dude on the matte painting..didnt see that one before...I like that more than the phone LOL

well done though mate

cheers bullet

Thanks man. Yeah that scene I did a little while ago now. I didn't realise that it was still the older version up there. I added some snow into it later on. Have to upload that and replace it at some point

Looking good Ben
The only thing letting it down is the number pad looks a little faint or is the phone like that?...........dave