Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Hi Elizabeth, nice work finishing the character, it's excellent and I don't have much feedback to give! I do see that you submitted it 22 days before the deadline, the only thing I can really recommend is you should have spent those 22 days improving the elements you called out in your "reflection" section of your documentation. You also had time to build a small environment for the character to be in, which would help sell the character and the world that they inhabit, which would have helped your presentation tremendously. A black background is not very interesting to look at, so it would have been nice to see some improvement there, even if you did something in post. I might also remove the black boxy particles, they are distracting in the final presentation. Regardless, this is great work, looking forward to seeing what you do in the future.
• Very nice piece! The design, shape language and chunky forms of the character are very appealing and nicely executed with clean modeling. The textures are also very clean and readable, with good attention to material types. I like the knit fabric especially. Take care to straighten your UVs and use a consistent direction, as that is important for texturing using tiling patterns. Right now they look pelt mapped and all over the place, you don't have to be that crazy optimised because the textures will suffer, for example the stretching/rotated pattern on the part of the backpack holding the bottle. My only critiques on this piece would be the face and the rendering/presentation. The face details are done in a more realistic style, but I feel like your anatomy fundamentals still need work to execute this as well as you did the clothes. For instance, the nose and lips are a bit flat. Don't feel forced to use realistic facial forms just because its zbrush, you might have better results when you stylize the face more. I rated the presentation a bit low because I don't think the harsh black background compliments your work, and some of the framing choices are bit strange in that the character is offset. I think you can make this dramatic spotlight look work, but the super saturated floor and black background draw way too much attention away from the pastel character. Also, the material work on the character itself is a bit basic, I would expect to see more SSAO and soft shadows. Some parts of the character are going way too black in the shadows, and other parts are blown out. Also take care of your light direction and keep in mind how portraits should be lit, which is a standard 3-point light setup without the lights being angled down that creates such a severe lighting shape on the face. I think if you worked on these areas you could do a much better presentation. Regardless of the crits I like the overall aesthetic a lot, good job!
• documentation is great! The only thing that lets it down is the font choice, it's not very easy to read. Textures and model are great, definitely something I could see in an indie game. My only suggestion is that you could have pushed the contrast in the albedo a little more and had more variation in the roughness maps. Also using tesselation and displacement on the hard surface props is unecessary, but really great asset overall :)
• A lovely piece of work, lovely texturing and a frank yet constructive presentation with self-critique. As you know yourself, there are some topology issues, take note for example to the elbow topology, and how you pinch it inward rather than letting it flow the edge loops round which would have been preferred. Other than that, it’s a beautiful piece, well presented and constructed and textured, with great details such as the fabric which complement the art style you’re producing. Also, the dog looked quite cool also!
• Great work, the final character came out looking really strong. There's a clear theme throughout and the style is very consistent and fits nicely, too. There's a lot of small elements that really bring this character to life which is great to see. Sometimes there's perhaps a little bit too noise, the texture on the zip up sweater is a nice touch for example, but it might have looked better with lower opacity on the height or normal map in painter. There's some sculpted detail here and there that feels a little out of place as well, like the little dents on the trousers and the shoes. These damages seem to break up the material definition a bit and make it seem almost a little toyish at times. It would've been nice to see them looking unique to what kind of clothing it is (for example something that looks more like a tear or something worn out for fabric). Having more variation in the roughness maps would also help make the materials more believable, for example by having wear on these damaged areas, or damage around the raincoat hems to make the material feel less uniform and more believable. In terms of colour palette there's a nice harmony and it looks well thought out. To push things further, it would be great to see more colour variation within the separate elements. Something like a gradient in the orange sweater going from a more yellowish orange to a reddish one, for example. Or spots on the raincoat that lean a bit towards purple or something towards the sort. It might be worth looking at some of the reference images chosen and just using the eyedropper to see how other artists tackled that. Looking at the piece by Tim Oliver Haag for example, there's a very strong gradient in the character's raincoat which helps direct attention towards the face. In many of the other pieces if you go over an area that looks like a colour block, you also see a lot of variation in hue even though everything looks quite uniform at a glance. The facial topology could also use some work, it seems like the idea behind it is that because there was not a lot of animation in the face the loops in the face around the mouth especially don't need the loops for animation going all the way around the mouth, or the ones ranging from nose to chin. Even if you only have a bone to move the bottom jaw, you wouldn't want a point where 5 edges converge so close to the upper lip. Lastly in terms of presentation, the blown out lighting and dark shadows in the lighting are a bit of a shame as they obscure quite a bit of detail and perhaps make the normal maps look a bit stronger than they are as well. It gives this feeling that the character is in the spotlight but not much more than that right now, it would be great to see more storytelling through the render set up as well. A point light near the face would have done a lot as well to draw more attention towards it, or a directional light at the back to highlight the silhouette. All in all this character came out looking really strong and it'll be great to see where you take your work in the future. It seems like this character functions well within the boundaries of the game it was made for. Well done!
• Hi and congratulations on finishing your project! The good: Good eye for shapes and shape flow, which is a skill not to be taken lightly as it takes many more raw hours to pick up than the more technical aspects of the craft. It is actually a relatively rare strength even among seasoned industry professionals. Concept work is also a strength that will help you get further than many of your peers even when working off pre-existing designs, as even when working from other people’s concepts it equips you to confidently interpret shapes and design elements to confidently resolve them into final assets. Areas of focus: I’m being somewhat nitpicky at this point, but not 100% sold on the material work. That aside, keep doing what you are doing, I think you are on the right track and in some ways are already further ahead of many people in the studios out there. You might still need some raw mileage of finished works to prove yourself but all of the ingredients are there. Good job and good luck! Thanks, Pavel artstation.com/sobakuchiuchiu