Project 3 — Original Work
30 points · Weeks 11–16 · Nov 3 – Dec 8
The assignment
An original piece of your own — concept through final delivery, built to portfolio standard.
Project 1 gave you an external target and asked only for execution. Project 2 asked you to prove you understood what you executed. Project 3 removes the scaffolding: you decide what to make, and you defend why it was worth making.
There are two legitimate starting points, and you may combine them:
1. Fill a gap in your portfolio. In Week 3 you audited the online portfolio you built in Portfolio Development and identified what is missing. This is where you fix it. If your portfolio has four character pieces and no environments, build an environment. If everything is offline-rendered and every job you want is real-time, build in-engine.
2. Target a specific job posting. Find a real, current posting for a role you want. Identify a required skill it names that your portfolio does not currently demonstrate. Build the piece that demonstrates it.
Or follow your own creative interest — provided you can articulate what it adds to your body of work. "I wanted to make it" is a real reason, but it has to survive the follow-up question.
Start from the gap, not the idea
The most common failure here is starting with a cool idea and reverse-engineering a justification. Do it the other way.
Open your portfolio. Ask:
- What role does this portfolio currently qualify me for?
- What role do I actually want?
- What is the difference between those two answers?
That difference is your project brief. Your Week 3 portfolio review already contains most of this analysis — reread it before you concept anything.
Then get specific. Not "I need more environment work" but "every environment in my portfolio is stylized and the studios I want do grounded realism, so I need one grounded realistic environment, built in Unreal, with performance evidence."
The second version tells you what to make. The first one does not.
What the 2026 market rewards
Three findings from the Industry Skills Report worth building into your scope decision:
Finished beats ambitious. Studios are hiring for demonstrated ability rather than potential, and even junior postings expect strong portfolios with completed project work. One genuinely finished piece outperforms three at 70%.
Real-time is the default context. Unreal leads engine adoption at roughly 42% against Unity's 30%, and real-time output is now used for final pixels rather than just previz. Even in offline disciplines, showing your work functioning in a real-time context widens the set of jobs you qualify for.
Show the craft, not just the result. Portfolio expectations now consistently include wireframe or clay renders, texture map breakdowns, rig demonstration videos, and engine screenshots. Plan these captures into production — reconstructing them at the end is painful and it shows.
Scope
Five weeks, one of which is finals week.
Well scoped
- One shot, one asset, one system, one level, one sequence
- Every part finished to the same standard
- Difficulty concentrated in the thing you want to be hired for, simplified everywhere else
- Presentable in under two minutes
Badly scoped
- A short film
- A game
- Anything requiring a collaborator not enrolled in this course
- Anything whose first pass will not exist until Week 14
If your Week 12 consultation ends with uncertainty about whether it can be finished, cut it that day. Cutting in Week 12 is planning. Cutting in Week 15 is triage.
Milestones
Thumbnails — 10 points · due Week 12, Tuesday, November 10
Concept and pre-production.
- The gap statement — what your portfolio is missing, or the posting and the specific requirement you are targeting. Quote the posting language if you are using one.
- Project statement — what you are making, in two or three sentences
- Why this fills the gap — one paragraph connecting the piece to the gap. This is the argument the whole project rests on.
- Thumbnails and exploration — at least 15–20 quick explorations, or the track equivalent: shot ideas, silhouette studies, layout sketches, system diagrams, level plans, rig concepts
- Reference board — visual and technical reference, cited
- Chosen direction — the selected concept developed further, with rationale for choosing it over the alternatives
- Technical plan — pipeline, software, engine, delivery format, constraints
- Capture plan — the breakdown material you will produce alongside the piece: wireframes, turntables, texture breakdowns, debug views, rig demos, profiling data
- Production schedule through Week 16, with what exists at the end of each week
First Draft — 10 points · due Week 14, Tuesday, November 24
The whole piece at rough standard. Same principle as Project 1: complete, not polished.
| Track | First draft means |
|---|---|
| Motion / title design | Full animatic, all beats timed |
| 3D animation | Full blocking, timing and camera locked |
| Rigging | Complete rig functional, first skinning pass, all controls working |
| Technical art | System working end to end, unoptimized |
| Game design | Full playable greybox |
| Game programming | System functioning with placeholder content |
| Character design / boards | Every frame or view present at rough standard |
| Virtual production | Real-time environment functional with tracking |
Also submit: a written self-critique naming the three weakest parts, and your plan for the remaining two weeks.
You will get substantial notes here, and the Thanksgiving holiday follows immediately. Leave Week 14 knowing exactly what you are doing with that time.
Final Render — 10 points · due Week 16, Tuesday, December 8
- The finished piece, exported to submission standards and added to your online portfolio
- Breakdown material — the captures from your Week 12 plan
- Process documentation — 8–12 images or clips from concept through final
- Presentation — a two-minute walkthrough in Week 16, structured as a portfolio review: what it is, what gap it fills, what was hard, what you would do next
- Written reflection, 750–1,000 words:
- What you set out to make and what you actually made
- The hardest technical and the hardest aesthetic problem, and how each was resolved
- Whether the gap is actually closed — be honest if it is only partly closed
- What is still missing from your portfolio and what you will build next
Grading
| 9–10 | 7–8 | 5–6 | 0–4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thumbnails | Gap clearly identified and argued; substantial exploration; realistic technical and capture plan | Adequate exploration; sound plan; gap stated | Thin exploration; vague gap; optimistic scope | Minimal |
| First draft | Whole piece present and reading clearly; self-critique accurate | Mostly complete; some sections thin | Significant gaps | Fragmentary |
| Final render | Portfolio-ready and added to the portfolio; strong breakdown; confident presentation; honest reflection | Finished with visible craft; solid documentation | Unresolved problems or incomplete delivery | Not delivered |
Weighted across all three: clarity of the gap argument, originality and coherence of concept, execution quality against professional standards in your track, evidence of growth from Project 1, quality of breakdown material, and professionalism of the final presentation.
The finishing standard
There is a specific gap between done and finished that separates student work from professional work, and it lives almost entirely in the last 10%.
Finished means: the render is clean, the edges are resolved, the timing got one more look, the file is named properly, the video is the right resolution and codec, the thumbnail is chosen deliberately, the description is written, the credits are correct, and someone who is not you can open it and understand it in ten seconds.
Reserve the last week for this. Not for new content — for finishing.