Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Awesome! The scene turned out great! I really love the atmosphere you created here with the fog and snow. The textures generally read well, and the meshes are accurate, however the poly counts are very high. I understand pushing the limits for portfolio quality work, but reducing un-needed loops is very important, and vertex painting doesn't require too many vertices if you add a modulating texture into the shader to breakup the vertex paint mask. The sword handle and Tori gate especially stood out as very high. Other than that though, I would say keep pushing the texturing skills, getting lots of contextual dirt/grime/edgewear etc, and some more interesting roughness maps would be great. Good Job!
• Hi Aziz, I can tell you've put a lot of effort and soul into this project and it was a delight to inspect, examine and watch. Research + Development Barely anything to say on this aspect beside one that is very important for this kind of scene : Storytelling. Although you wanted to create a mysterious atmosphere it is not clear why you've decided to make weapons beside adding a strong contrast. Also it is not clear why the stone shrines are inclined in different angles. We might suspect a strong earthquack or storm to disrupt them but then, I would expect some destruction on the rest of the scene. I'd say the screenshot displaying your hero props makes them very shy even though they are bright red. It's almost like we were expecting a whole armor set or at least something reddish behind them that is bigger to be more noticeable and sitted on the environment. Maybe the person on top of the stairs abandoned his equipment as the Samuraï era vanished ? Then I wonder why throwing those kunais and stars on the trunk ? This feels less justified in a very very solid work but again, this is nitpick. Technical / Workflow As you mentioned at the conclusion, for a real time scene, high polycount is a flaw but you've already analyzed and picked all your weaknesses. I do congrats you on this as this is a clear indication of self evaluation and an amazing virtue for improvement. Creative Development As you mentioned you've mostly copied from the real world. Since there is no conception properly speaking, I looked on how realistic everything felt. There are some things I've noticed you could improve to make this project even better. The snow on the stairs especially feels like cotton, the imperfections / " waviness " tends to be repetitive and break the natural illusion. Also the transition between the rock material and the snow feels very sharp maybe it would be possible to add some fading effect with gradients of some sort ? The main let down would be the wood material overall. It is a shame to have such a high quality everywhere and notice the lack of details / wearing on those wooden barriers and the tree that is unfortunately in foreground for the hero asset closeup shot. Other than that, yes, your scene feels majestic and mysterious... Great job mate. Conclusion : I'd put those notes on the back of time constraint as everything looks very solid already. A week or two of improvement on this work will make this scene going from very solid to amazing. To me you are a rising star. Alexandre - Senior hard surface artist - VFX industry