Hi there! I have recently completed an MSc in Computer Animation & Graphical Technology Applications from Teesside University, UK. Half of the modules in this course focussed on graphics programming using OpenGL & C/C++. I would like to know if my resume and portfolio is strong enough for job application purposes. My website is: https://sites.google.com/site/sskstorm/ Any help would be greatly appreciated! Regards, Sameer

<not a hiring manager of any kind>

Well, for starters you should make sure your site at least holds together properly when resizing the browser window. Your homepage becomes a mess of overlapping elements in Firefox when I have the window smaller than 1000 pixels wide or so (roughly).

In terms of layout, I can almost guarantee people don't care what social video site your videos are hosted on. It is enough to make sure they work and are easily playable. Youtube is a fine choice, Vimeo is a fine choice, but don't clutter it up with links to both. Just be certain they work.

The flash game you included about interviewing for a job in a job portfolio is silly and a little uncomfortable.

Your actual examples are kind of sprawling. One thing that immediately pops out at me is that you have several videos which are all about 10-30 seconds in length, focus on similar aspects of the same system, and take up a lot of real-estate. Maybe consider merging those together into one or two videos which highlight the effects you want to show along with a short description.

Cut the sitemap from your navigation, it's dumb. A sitemap is for a search-engine, not for users of your site. Same goes for "recent site activity" which is obviously an admin page and should generally not appear prominantly on your navigation (if a site has an admin section the link is fine at the bottom of the site if it has to appear on your page at all.)

Finally, ditch your site generating tool or learn to use it properly. I'm not familiar with "google sites", but it is generating terrible table based markup (which is fine for visual editors except that it isn't even holding together properly. I suspect this is due to misuse of the tool though.)

HTML is not difficult especially when developing a simple and clean site, consider looking into just doing this by hand. I know I'm focusing a lot on the broken presentation rather than the content, but it's really so badly distracting on my laptop with a smaller resolution that I can't really focus on the text (often image descriptions are far away from the images they describe!)

[Edited by - M2tM on March 13, 2010 2:48:52 AM]

First of all, forgive me if this sounds harsh. It is not my intend to insult or judge you. Second, I should point out that I have no industry experience, and any comments are based purely on my personal impression of your site and portfolio.

The graphics programming part of your portfolio seemed, in my opinion, a bit thin. The particle effects were rather simple and to be honest, they didn't impress much. I completely agree with M2tM; try to merge similar videos into one. After watching essentially the same thing for 20 seconds or so I lost interest.

While solar systems are fun and all, your little demo lacked the visual quality I'd look for if I were a potential employer. Single-color materials and standard lighting just doesn't cut it in my opinion. Perhaps you could work on getting properly textured planets, and apply some nice shader effects? What I'm trying to say is that if you're potentially applying for a job as a graphics programmer (which I take it you are?) the demos had better look top notch.

Right now, I would not hire you. I suggest you work on improving your demos and reorganizing the site. That way I'm sure you'll make a much better impression.

I have absolutely no experience as far as animation goes, so I won't comment on that at all.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot guys for your help!

M2tM>
I have been able to remove the sitemap & recent site activity that you suggested. I felt they were unnecessary as well.

I'll try to combine the particle systems videos as well. But i'll let the Vimeo links still stay on the site for now.



Windryder>
I do plan to make the Solar system look better and with more features. The thing is it was my first attempt to use OpenGL and being a module work there was a deadline, but now that I have more time and experience I will try to make my programs look visually appealing.