Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• I really like this one. Great research, great analysis of the art style, great use of Zbrush, nice material breakup, good roughness and metalness variation, Nanite displacement adds a lot. Excellent documentation. Not much to criticise, except maybe you could do a bit more with the indirect lighting and atmospheric fog when looking at some of your ref shots from GoW. Could that shaft of light be beefed up a bit, maybe bouncing around the scene a bit more? Fab submission, anyway - well done!
• Reviewing Environment Art: Excellent documentation. Excellent materials work. The aesthetic of the piece is good, but suffers due to the comparison with the existing game title. I felt that the lighting and fogging dominated the scene and desaturated the subtle texturing which is predominately wood. The fire elements could have been used to create more contrast and interest to the scene, whilst some texture elements such as the carved relief would benefit from some colour treatment.
• Overall the project is nice, the lighting approach too. I would have added more variation in the lighting which tend to be repetitive in some places : it's not because the light source/fixture is identical that you cannot create a light hierarchy and layering better the distance. Variety is important to give the feeling that this environment is believable. Avoiding the "airport light" aesthetic will add more life and visibility. Technical aspect of your modeling is clean. In general I think you're ready for a junior position.
• I thought this was an interesting interpretation of the theme so I looked it up, and while the justification still stands.. just.. the explanation you have seems to be incorrect. The Vikings believed that the *sky* was a dome, formed by the inside of Aurgelmir, the first great giant’s skull, and is held up by four dwarfs, one at each point of the compass. I liked how you took one asset through the pipeline to work out what you wanted to do with it, that was a smart idea. I would think about how many divisions your circles have, in case you need to remove polys to make LODs, and definitely consider straightening up your UV shells wherever possible to make them pack easier and help prevent "jaggies". Could you have combined smaller assets together onto one T-page to help reduce unused space in your UV maps? The pillars in particular look quite wasteful. Think also about putting detail where you need it - could kit pieces that are high up out of the gameplay area have been simplified to reduce tris? Some of the cuttlery could probably also have been cheaper - when modelling really small things, it is easy to lose sight of how big they will be in game. Your wood sculpt look pretty successful overall but next time please look into end grain and how to treat that as it will elevate your props much further. You mention ropes being used to add environmental storytelling but then don't show what the ropes do or how they contribute to this? Not a criticism necessarily but obviously make sure you're adding things for a reason in that case. Some more referene collection and looking into this type of structure from a historical perspective could have helped, rather than just relying on the game concept art which gives you the aesthetic without the thinking underneath. It is however great to see you did an optimisation pass, I actually don't think I've seen anyone else's submission with one. The lighting is really successful and the addition of the fog planes worked a treat. Overall a very competent submission.