A 3D case study explains how you approached a 3D Task and created its outcome. This is the most ideal and popular format used by 3D professionals while building their portfolio projects. Here’s a closer look at the order to document your projects in Behance.
Before discussing how to build your portfolio, it’s important to understand who your target audience is. As a student, you are building a portfolio for academic grading, internships, or job applications. Therefore, it’s crucial to showcase not only your 3D skills but also your knowledge of its concepts.
Content Flow of a good 3D Portfolio project
A good cover image is essential for your project. A high-quality cover image will attract viewers to your project and will create an aesthetic hook point to ease the reader into your case study. A hi-res cinematic render of your 3D output will be ideal here. Start your project documentation with this render. The same can be your project thumbnail as well.
Start with a short note on your task and objective. What were your trying to build? Mention the requirements and challenges. You can also mention your gear/tool kit.
Show some sketches. It’s important to inform the audience that you didn’t start this process flow from the computer. A little groundwork on paper will definitely show that you are intuitive, goal-oriented and strategic.
Upload some images showing different stages of your workflow. Don’t forget to add captions to images. (For eg: Mesh Topology, Wireframe, Ambient Occlusion Pass; Beauty Pass etc).
Show the final renders. Make it as cinematic as possible with dramatic lighting, interesting camera angles, depth of field and backgrounds.
Include a small turntable animation. For Behance, make a gif, so that it seamlessly plays while the document is being read.
Conclude with a small note on the things you learned during this task, the challenges you tackled and the experience you had. This is important as it showcases how good a learner you are.
Try to document your project in Canva or illustrator to make it look aesthetically pleasing. You can upload these image slices onto Behance.
Give a proper title to your project – not just a 3d modelling project. Give it a proper name! (For eg: 3D Model Workflow: Weapon Series: Axe)
Things to remember
Always check from the reader’s perspective. Will they understand your project?
Ensure that it is aesthetically pleasing. Even if your work is good, a messy presentation will leave a bad impression.
Avoid spelling and grammatical errors in your documentation. Use a tool like Grammarly to get help.
