What makes a good portfolio for an Environment Artist?
When creating work for your portfolio as an Environment Artist there are multiple things that will help you stand out from the crowd, in this post I will cover what I feel to be some of the most important points.
- Poly Count
One of the biggest things newcomers to the professional industry of environment art overlook is the importance of poly count. While the exact acceptable amount varies from game engine to game engine, the core concept of keeping poly count as low as possible remains prevalent to the point that every single poly used will be scrutinised to save as much resources as possible, the actual number of polys given to objects is much lower than newcomers to the industry realise and having a good grasp of this in advance is extremely beneficial to your portfolio.
2. Modular Assets
Being able to create and work with Modular Assets is highly desirable as it allows for quick iteration. If you model out an entire room including each individual object, this is incredibly time consuming and if at a later point something needs to change, the process of reworking the area becomes more challenging whereas with modular assets you can simply rework the area to suit your needs. It also shows that you can be organised and able to properly plan out the asset requirements in advance of actual creation.
There is also an excellent lecture from Bethesda at GDC on how Modular design played a big part in the creation of Fallout 4 :
3. Consistency
An important consideration with an Environment Artists portfolio is consistency. You need to think about what your main focus is and reflect this in your portfolio, especially if you are looking to work for a AAA company who look for specialists over generalists. A portfolio that lacks consistency can be confusing to a prospective employer as you aren’t making it clear what your passion is. If you want to work with Environments, having a portfolio showing hard surface weapon modelling and animation only serves as a distraction and doesn’t highlight your strongest asset.
4. Presentation
Knowing how to present your work in a portfolio is key as it really allows you to highlight your work in the best possible light and impress anyone who looks at your work, it also shows an understanding of composition and that you have an eye for what looks good, if you can’t present your work in a good way, your work can look great but have a poor appearance from the stills you have taken. Understanding how to properly frame your still images will help impress anyone who views your portfolio and takes your work to the next level.
5. Quality Of Work
With your portfolio, it is important to prioritise strong work over all of your work, not only does it keep your portfolio concise, it also shows you have a good eye for what looks good and what doesn’t. If you showcase your weaker work alongside your stronger work, suddenly you cast doubt as to if you have a good eye for what looks good and what looks bad. It is much better to have 3 pieces of portfolio work highlighting you at your very best rather than showcasing 3 pieces of fantastic work and 5 pieces of subpar work.
Connect With Me!
If you’ve found any of the above information useful, or you have any questions, you can always feel free to connect me on my LinkedIn Profile! I’d love to talk to you and share information. Please also take a look at my other blog posts!
