squid

I have been working by on my own doing 3D renderings in New York for two years now. The pay is pretty good compared to being a salaried employee performing architectural duties as well as 3d renderings. My gross rate hovers just under $100/hr. This rate may sound high compared to other regions of the country, but the average rent in my neighborhood is around $1600 per month for a 'charming' 1 bedroom apartment if you know what I mean. I am finding the cost of doing business is also rising due to the following reasons: 1. more frequent software updates and new software (to keep up with the increasing complexity of renderings desired by the clients.) 2. accelerating hardware upgrade cycle (14 months) 3. increased time spent learning cg techniques. I find that developers are generally easier to work with and pay on time compared to architects with notable exceptions. There's are still quite a few design orientated firms that will not think twice about dropping big $$$ change to spice up their portfolios for design awards, btw they're are really great people to be around. I think coporate interior firms are probably the worst clients because of the conserv. nature of their clients and the way they handle invoices. Just out of curiosity, I would like to know what the ratio of time spent on 3D rendering vs. performing architectural duties for anyone who is employed by an architect and whether of not anyone thinks their pay matches their additional 3D skills? Hope this helps! Squid Hope this helps! Squid

big thanks for pointing out all the fixes! here's the spec. for my laptop: inspiron 4000 850mhz p3 256mb ram 10 gig hard drive i partition the hd into two drives. one for data and the other for programs. i use this laptop primarily for presentation with lcd projector. i only have a few prgrams installed on this laptop for presentation (not too much real work done on this computer.) but looks like i have to re-install w2k on the other dell here. i'll post a viz. radiosity bench. before & after for those who might be interested in the performance difference. thanks, squid since installing w2k, i haven't had any performance or stability issues in contrast to the previous os on this laptop (win98se) i am really glad to be rid of win98 now that i've seen how fast and stable this computer is now.

Hi, I probably need to re-install some of the other machines here, thanks for the tip! Is it a good idea when re-install the OS after receiving a new computer to get some more performance out of the computer or is the performance gain engligible? Squid

Hi everyone, I recently performed a clean installation of Windows 2000 on my Dell laptop and noticed that everything works much faster (i.e. boot-up, loading applications, working in photoshop, etc.) All hardware configuration remains unchanged. I couldn't believe it was the same machine afterwards. Has anyone had similar experiences on their Dell machines or knows why? Thanks, Squid

ken, you might also download some autolisp routines online to help you clean up some of those overlapping lines in autocad before making splines out of them. it might speed up your work. squid

Hi, Here are the images before the tweaks. http://www.imgstudio.com/download.asp?src=0715200211340124.jpg http://www.imgstudio.com/download.asp?src=0715200210500557.jpg For a 500 acre site, I would think RPC content would be serious overkill (and serious overhead). Memory overhead was surprisingly good (for 4000-5000 rpc tress) Final render (5100x2865) time was under 1 hour on a p42200 with 512ram I did have memory problems with the RPC Spray Script. It seems that the file size doubles or triples after multiple RPC spraying of trees using RPC Spray Script - Not sure if it's a good remedy, but my solution was to save the viz file (with rpc trees) periodically, create new viz file, import old viz file with rpc trees, then save new viz file. Big thanks for the 'normalized spline modifier', it reduced the poly count considerably! Squid Squid

hi everyone, sorry that i have not been able to post further updates, but i have been working overtime on this presentation and was away meeting with the clients during the past several weeks. since i was running out of time, i had to use the methods that i already knew to terrain object and shapemerge & glue to make roads, curbs, grass, etc. and about 10,000 rpc trees (but that's another story altogether...) One good technique I like to use is to build your terrain splines at a higher resolution and apply the Normilize Spline modifier... this sounds like great idea, i'll have to try it for the next iteration. i will post a picture to illustrate the problem - can anyone suggest a url for storing images? thanks, squid

the architectural "milieu" being such a conventional one, firms do not accept people who took different ways to get to the same point and cg is definitely one such way - it is regarded as a full-time occupation that has nothing to do with design ( even if your education will allways be an asset);B] the architectural "milieu" being such a conventional one, firms do not accept people who took different ways to get to the same point and cg is definitely one such way - it is regarded as a full-time occupation that has nothing to do with design ( even if your education will allways be an asset); Couldn't agree with you more. CG visualization is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's nice to have the ability to do CG, but just don't get stuck doing it if your desire is to be an architect. Here's the problem, the more time you spend at the office doing CG, the less time you have to learn all the necessary skills to be a better designer, detailer, team player, project manager, etc. etc. Not to mention $$$ I had an interesting conversation with my former boss a few years ago to see if I could spend more time doing 'architectural' work (SD, DD, CD, & CA) instead of being stuck in pre-design and being the dedicated office rendering machine. The response was as follows: "Back in the day, people with prisma colors had this problem. I am not sure what to tell you but that we will try to get you more involved." I agree with alexandre, if you enjoy doing 'renderings', freelance is a great way to supplement your salary. When starting out as a young architect, it's too tempting for the principal in charge to pass up on the chance to get cheap renderings at your time. Squid

Hi, I am working on an aerial perspective of a 500+ acre site. I am hoping to use the same 3D model for the eye-level perspectives as well. There's three mild hills on this site (approx. +50 feet change in height.) Here's what I've done so far: 1. I created the splines (at 10' increment) in AutoCAD 2. Import splines into VIZ4 3. Using imported splines, made a terrain object. Everything appear ok at first, but after a closer look, I see facets around 'tight' turning contours (in areas where the creeks and roads are.) Can anyone suggest a better technique? Thanks, Squid Does anyone

like any other profession, much depends on the people that are your clients. generally, architects will pay top $$ if you ask for it and have the artistic rendering skills to back it up. one thing to keep in mind is that architects often need approvals from their client and bill renderings out as an reimbursable expense to be paid by the clients.

Pentium 2.2A Northwood Win 2000 Pro Viz 4 512 megs of RDRAM 16 Minutes 16 Seconds

Be very careful if you're going to build your own AMD system though. I would recommend Monarch Computer,.Game PC, etc. Not Xi though.

hi, this is my first post here - just wanted to say that this is a great website for architects and cg delineators alike. here's my question: i am thinking about buying either vray of finalrender for its enhanced raytracing capabilities and hopefully shorter rendering times. has anyone used either of these renderers in production? i would be curious to know how much faster either of these renderers are compared to the shipped viz4 scanline renderer. has anyone experienced any compatibility issues when using viz4? thanks, squid