neilmcbean

I think companies need to assume that at least 25% of time is unbillable, and use it to their advantage. Everyone needs skills development, not just in the technical or creative parts, but also in management, teamwork, client communication, business objectives, - and people also take breaks. Structuring time around learning new things can make all time more efficient, and establishing rates that reflect real billable hours keep things healthy for the industry. Employees shouldn't be billing 40 hours a week in order for companies to be profitable. It's just not sustainable.

I think to do accomplish that you want to develop shaders inside the final render engine - for UE you would probably use post-processing, which likely makes realtime performance impossible for most users IME, but you can render. https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/slug/post-process-shader-pack-vol The 'Borderlands' stuff is pretty jawdropping. https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/1/14778806/borderlands-3-video

Unity actually imports C4D, Blender and Maya files as assets. They get converted into FBX on load. Would love to talk to you about this. A few years back we did a series of children's apps called Bramble Berry Tales. We're currently relaunching them, and did some exploration for how to create a multi-channel pipeline using Unity. Unreal is a little more AAA gaming, and we wanted something flexible. Unity was also a little further ahead in terms of realtime editing at that point, and the rendering for our needs (DOF, AO, skylights, AA) was kind of a wash. Our main goal has been to be able to produce apps, shorts, and broadcast content using a single pipeline. I found Blender and Maya far more predictable in terms of asset exchange, but people do it in C4D. Non linear animation and use of mocap are really good in both Unity and Unreal. I started out as an oldschool, multi-plane camera, draw-it-yourself character animator, and applying those principles to realtime production make a ton of sense to me. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UtS7cucwZbPUBTP1-PcJ5BVFJfMGT1uU/view?usp=sharing This is one of our early tests, straight out of Unity. Ultimately we didn't go that route because our first launch is for ipad - it's hard to control the experience that way, because there is too much variability in devices, and kids get the hand-me-downs. I think a hybrid approach can also work - build an animation bank, and output to game engines and render/composite depending on the best use in each case. No matter what, would love to see what you're up to and share more of what we're doing.

I think at this point Redshift is the lead production renderer in commercial and film - it's doing the things the others are trying to do. Arnold and RenderMan have a lot of the market (and 15-20 years old), but nothing is matching Redshift's growth in market share AFAIK. Films will use multiple renderers to achieve results, so studios will hold licenses for everything useful. Right now it's those three. In advertising VRay and Redshift are popular (fast, good results), but Redshift integration with C4D and Houdini is better at this point, and Maxon's relationship with Houdini mean that support will probably continue. My crystal ball says that's the space Maxon wants. Support should be good - at least that's what the Redshift people are saying. They wanted the acquisition because they want to focus on product, and let Maxon worry about the sales.

Maxon apparently created a couple of exchange plugins for C4D to Unreal that you can get through cineversity. I think there is going to be a hybrid of work between what I'll call 'traditional' rendering and interactive realtime rendering for a while. Even if everything is possible in Unreal, it's not necessarily practical right now. People are doing some cool experiments with realtime filmmaking, but I haven't heard of anyone going all in yet. Would love to hear about it if anyone else has, though.

I think there are a couple of considerations here. First off, you need to charge what you need to live and invest in your future. I made a simple rate calculator for this: https://zigtheapp.com/rate_calculator/ The point is - if you can't charge what you need, then you need to look at something else or build up your skills. As others have said, freelancing isn't just about putting up a shingle. You have to stand out, you have to chase work, develop a network and build your skills. I'm not an architect, but I've been a matte painter, character artist, and VFX supervisor. What I suggest to people starting out is this - find something great and replicate it. Then do that a few more times with different environments. If you can match a great image you'll learn modelling, lighting, and composition. Then work on some original stuff - base it on public domain assets. Work with iconic structures. Deliver emotion and you can make a mark. Set a high bar for yourself and take advantage of communities like this one to help you hit it - there are great people here that know their stuff and are willing to help. And take in as much as you can - read, read ,read. Adam Zollinger is putting together a good primer. https://www.udemy.com/ue4-an-advanced-real-time-arch-viz-project/?couponCode=LAV_SALE It's really about being good enough to earn enough to do something you love to do.

Maybe this isn't news to many....but I thought it was kind of a big deal. Maxon acquired Redshift, which is probably the most important render engine in film and commercial production. I feel like this is a missing tool in archviz - redshift is extremely stable, handles huge scene size, has great export options, and leverages the GPU in a scalable way. As of now pricing will not change, but if Redshift becomes the default rendering engine for C4D I might start looking again. In other news you might not think is a big deal the Blue Jackets beat the Lightning last night. That really came out of nowhere.

Thanks Nevile! I hope the pricing works out. I think you have to bill based on what you need, not based on what the market will bear (unless market prices are much higher than what you need . Then it's about finding clients and projects willing to pay. I totally get the "too greedy" thing, but I also think people should remember that their price impacts everyone else's price. By pricing fairly, and taking all of our needs into account, everybody does better.

I'm not sure anyone suggested it didn't take time to produce - anything that is well composed, well paced, has detail, and iterated design is going to take time and effort. Also Coco has massive scene load - from experience, people who work on films do not optimize through their workflow like people in games. Optimizing for GPU doesn't mean 'bad', it means that labour and money is directed in different areas. That, to me, is like saying films are 'optimized for compositing'. It's a workflow designed for a result. I'd expect the number of people, time and cost are similar to if you rendered those same films in a CPU raytracer - but that's the point. It's getting less expensive. To me it presents alternatives for workflow. You and a 2 day turnaround has value, but realtime immersive experiences may also have value in a different context, and bridges might open to speed up the process. Production requirement is very much an issue of perspective. I know people that are testing Unity as a broadcast production tool and it's performing pretty well, as well as reducing the cost need to outsource. When the Adam demo was released I was talking to a VR Game AD and he said 'they used smoke and mirrors'. The director for that video was Neill Blomkamp, and all they really did was use Unity as a replacement for Nuke. To me, that's not smoke and mirrors. To me, that's filmmaking on a more efficient platform. The only real limitation is memory (but that's always been a limitation). Hybrid renderers like redshift and cycles provide a good metric for comparison - it's cheaper to add GPU's than assemble new machines, maintain render farms, etc. Also Unity and Unreal both have scene optimization tools. The real downside of realtime rendering is that ability to control the experience on different devices, but streaming services are being built that can solve that problem.

Not sure if everyone's seen these: Unreal + Quixel demo: Unity demo: Haven't tried Quixel Mixer yet, but I'm planning on taking it for a spin.

I remember some recent camera matching threads and thought I'd throw this out there: SynthEyes is really good and pretty affordable. The video does both object and scene tracking, and is focused on SynthEyes to Maya, but you can export to anything. I'm going to do some workups on tracking in Blender for those that are interested, but syntheyes is a great option if you're looking to add plate tracking to your workflow. Especially because it's very good at dealing with camera distortion.

Then the hourly rate wouldn't work. It actually doesn't give you a salary, it only adds up your expenses and then adds a small buffer for unexpected costs. So those are your expenses....it may seem high, but it's a realistic target, especially for a fulltime freelancer. Also I should clarify - this is not a salary calculator, because salary takes a lot of costs out of the equation. For example cost of sales, legal costs, taxes, training etc. will probably be taken on by your company. Healthcare and employment insurance may be handled by your country if you are a salaried employee (they are here in Canada, but not if you are self-employed). The calculator uses the 1/1000 rule because of all the non-billable time required for starting/maintaining a service business. This is for people looking at side gigs, bootstrapping their own shops, or freelancing full-time. I see a lot of people who bill for freelancing like they would for salary, or maybe adding a small premium. I don't think that's enough.

Thanks Francisco. You're what we call a good tester. I appreciate it. The hourly freelance rate shouldn't match your full-time rate - it has to be higher because as a freelancer there are a lot of things you have to do that aren't billable. That's why I like the 1000 hour rule of thumb there. You'll never be billable 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year as a freelancer. I actually get a few freelancers saying that the number is low - a freelance software developer living in Utah might have low expenses, but the market will let them charge a lot. That's totally fine. But it should still work for side gigs. You would just set it up as though you are full-time freelancing, and use that as a start point. You'd probably have reduced marketing costs in that case. I think I fixed the percentage calculation. I think the formula was too complicated so I broke it down into smaller steps server-side (even though it's not a complicated formula). Now you just enter the tax % as a round number and it should work. I tested it a bunch of times and it updates interactively like it should. Thanks again!

Alrightee. Fixed it. I had to add another field, but at least now its tiny bot brain doesn't explode when you throw the number 3 at it.

Thanks Francisco. I noticed after I launched it that it screws up if you don't put in a four digit number. Working on that bug now. Everything is meant to be an annual budget amount so I didn't think it would come up that often. I'll put that next to each input so it's more clear. Retirement Savings and Investment would be a round number. I can add that instruction to the form. I mean whatever you put aside every year for retirement funds for whatever investment strategy you use - I'm not prescriptive, but I do notice a lot of freelancers (including myself for far too long) don't consider that as part of their annual budget.