Survey - Time Wise

[the.3dsmax.blogger]

I would like to conduct a survey where all your participation is required.

 

Each one you shall specify how much time we allocate to various aspect of a 3d viz,on an average, per view !!!!

 

Obviously because the scale, extent and detail levels are so very different in each case !! still, we could have some generalised idea about the same. a range of time value is also accepted.

 

pls follow this format

 

3d Modelling Time : 2 days @ 15 Hrs a day

Material & Lighting Setup ( incl of Test renders ) : 1 - 1.5 days

Final Render Time : 1 day including Pshop processing of Render passes

Final Render resolutions : 4500 x 3000 pixels

How many client revisions : 1 to 2 times max

 

Total Turn around Time : 4 - 5 working Days

 

Now the ball is your court !!!!

[Arnold Sher]

i think what you are talking about is luxury.. I would say 50% of our work involves a day turn around time, whereus we pick up a project at 8 o'clock in the morning and give a client finished product the same time the very next day. I am not even talking about small project.. We've done hotels, corporate offices and shopping centres.. Granted we have a server farm in house that can wip out 4000px x 2900px image in about an hour with global illumination and all the other stuff that goes with it. In saying that burning of the midnight oil is of common occurance. Financially speaking those are the best jobs as the clients pay top dollar(or in our case rand) for quick turn around time and there is no changes. Rather a pleasure as otherwise making changes seems to be rather in this season and probably the next...

[the.3dsmax.blogger]

... I would say 50% of our work involves a day turn around time, whereus we pick up a project at 8 o'clock in the morning and give a client finished product the same time the very next day. I am not even talking about small project.. We've done hotels, corporate offices and shopping centres.. Granted we have a server farm in house that can wip out 4000px x 2900px image in about an hour with global illumination and all the other stuff that goes with it.....

 

I am impressed !!! Ths is what I intend to find.. thanks for the feedback

[Sketchrender]

Can ask what is your work flow.

I get drawings from guys in the office i work in microstation , and have to spend a few ours stripping them out of all the unwanted info.

Then start modeling.

I have gotten one finished set of drawings in 5 years, so Changes are a given.

What software do you use, ie to model, and render , and how do you get the turn around so fast.

 

Thanks for the info , makes interestsing yet frightening reading.

 

phil

[DennisHolland]

Can you please tell us what the initial reason is for your survey?

 

Thanks in advance,

Dennis

[the.3dsmax.blogger]

Can you please tell us what the initial reason is for your survey?

 

Thanks in advance,

Dennis

sure dennis !! As is evident from the 1st response that there is a variation in turn around time by professionals across the world.There are many reasons for the same like :-1) scale & detailing level undertaken2) technical expertise & experience3) workflow differences4) hardware resource availabilty5) any other factor I might not be aware of By getting an idea of these time variations we can assess where we lack in certain aspects of viz and where we can improve on. Like for example, 4 days turn around time was luxury for somebody.. somebody else thought that 1 day turn around time was frightening..Indeed,there is so much we can learn here. So that we know what the best in the industry do & achieve. Be inspired and strive to reach those targets.

I get drawings from guys in the office i work in microstation , and have to spend a few ours stripping them out of all the unwanted info.Then start modeling.

I very much agree with kelly on this. cleaning a dwg file so that only the relevant info is imported into max from the mess the clients send us is a part of the time consuming schedule.I wonder how arnold@asylumstudio.co.za handles this aspect of Viz ?Its a learning proces , Dennis !!!!

[Sawyer]

This seems almost impossible to do. I am working on a project that I have been working on part time for months because the archi was taking his time getting to me. A more accurate way to look at this may be if you posted a file and asked everyone how long we thought it would take us to do it. And then an open blanket question says nothing of quality. I can model and render out of autocad but it might not be too good.

[lambros]

I agree. Sometimes I do urgent one or two days turnaround jobs, but other may take 1 or two months, because the cad files may not be final, or the client will request 4 or 5 revisions, or the client will not even be in a hurry and schedule bi-weekly meetings. In general, I could say that most of our projects are 7-10 days long, and require 3-5 render views at print resolution (2-4K)

[Fernando Lino]

the quality for 1 day work is 1 day work...nothing else!!!

it doesn't matter how fast I am...I alwalys finish at the last minute...because if I have 2 hours I'll use theses minutes to improve my job!...at least my clients know that I'm doing it my best and they pay for that!

[Jeff Mottle]

i think what you are talking about is luxury.. I would say 50% of our work involves a day turn around time, whereus we pick up a project at 8 o'clock in the morning and give a client finished product the same time the very next day. I am not even talking about small project.. We've done hotels, corporate offices and shopping centres.. Granted we have a server farm in house that can wip out 4000px x 2900px image in about an hour with global illumination and all the other stuff that goes with it. In saying that burning of the midnight oil is of common occurance. Financially speaking those are the best jobs as the clients pay top dollar(or in our case rand) for quick turn around time and there is no changes. Rather a pleasure as otherwise making changes seems to be rather in this season and probably the next...

 

Not that I see this changing anytime soon, but I hate when I read stuff like this. Clients need to to figure out how to plan their projects to allow more than 24 hours to complete a project. The problem is that it seems to be engrained into generation after generation that it's ok to leave everything to the last minute and expect everyone to jump becuase they wasted the time on themselves and did not think about the others down the line (ie the people who create their imagery). It's entrenched in every part of the industry at every stage of the process from early design to final marketing imagery. There is really no need for it, but yet it continues. That part of doing production CG work I will never miss. I think the worst was 36 hours straight to meet a deadline, but I have a feeling that there are many who have done much more than that.

[Sawyer]

The thing that gets me is that the client hints that it's ok if it's not the best image that they could buy they just need "something" to show the City or investers or whatever but then if the quality shows that it's not the best it will be judged over time against the best images they have seen. You spend 24 hours to do a full weeks job and it looks rushed because it was. At the time eveyone is cool with it because it was rushed but 6 months later you are embarrased to show it because it was rushed. It's a no win.

[Arnold Sher]

Hmmmm... Rather a bit of reading on this subject this lovely morning... I've actually just got onto my server and pulled up some images for you to show you the quality our clients expect. This is a far cry from what we usually deliver but than again a day job is a day job. It was really easy to find you some samples too as we have so many of these... In fact we have one client in particular who constantly does this to us.(i.e. 24 hour turnaround time) The problem lies that he actually gives us loads of work that is really profitable. They are big players and pitch on loads of different jobs locally and internationally. They are actually are really good designers and their projects always prove to be interesting to built and challenging. As for our workflow... I'll give you a breakdown on this client specifically to give you an idea. These guys work in Revit and it imports badly into Max. Usually it is unusable as it has millions of faces and all the layers are split. Sifting through usually is a waist of time so we would pull it into cad dump it onto one layer and redraw on top of it. Their models are usually unresolved and we get only a footprint of the building. Then our client will come and sit with us for about thirty minutes explaining to us to us what's what and what he is trying to achieve. Then it is al the engines go full steam for stright 24 hours. Here is is the result... Oh, lighting setup 30 minutes, vegetation and terrain another hour...

[Arnold Sher]

..it would help to attach the images.. sorry about that

[the.3dsmax.blogger]

This thread is coming all right .. keep it coming !!!!!!!

[Fernando Lino]

You answered my point Arnold; I also can do that in less than one day if the clients want this quality

These images don’t need GI at all because you almost don’t have shadows; plants and people are bitmaps

Arnold, I’m not saying that you work is not good….I’m saying this is the quality if you expend few hours on that and/or the client wants that.

I’m an architect and sometimes I need something to talk with clients or investors no for marketing….sometimes I need images with very high quality for the neighborhood, city planning meetings and Marketing material…..there are different factors; skills is the most important. Time and quality are in direct proportion for me.

[Sindala]

one or two day jobs are really not my thing. One week is even to short for my liking. If a client wants a job with a deadline like this i usually tell them that's just not possible. Usually we start negotiating a deadline that is reasonable, if it's ok i take the job, if not i don't.

In my experience if it's a regular client and you deliver in one day, for the next project they will expect the same. Educate the client that you need more time to make a better image and they will learn to plan you in better.

Seriously, it doesnt have to be like this, a building doesnt get planned and designed in one day, why should a 3d artist be pushed to do a one day job. I always try to do the best i can on a project, and if i dont have the time to do that i wont take the job. I agree that you lose clients, and money, but your average quality stays good, and that's more important in the long run imo.

my longest job btw, 48 hours straight on redbull instant coffee and banana's

[3dp]

hi

how long is a piece of string

i've turned out sketch images before in 3-4 hoursother pieces of work may take ages (days - weeks even) depending on size and scope of project and the brief

happily these days i now get clients who can and will wait but they will also come to me at 17.00 one day with a rush job they need for 9.00 the day after as was the case last month (and they paid triple for it so it was worth while)

quality cannot be rushed and from recent experience with sub contractors i have employed24 hour turnaround on aproject where the model produced is close but no cigar meant that i had to do it myself

true there are people out there who when you say jump they will and ask how high and they devalue all of us as a profession - there comes point where it pointless to even begin a project either because there is no time or a budget is too low

this seems to be hapening more oftern these days

[ecastillor]

1 day jobs is what keeps my office alive and kicking, because I charge my clients for the "express" job....An the usually do that after my competitors decline to do that job....

 

So, if I can do it with my resources, and the money is good for the sleepless night, sure ill take it

[alexg]

Our turn around time usually 2-3 days modelling, then we start sending previews in the next day or two. There has never been a project without revisions.

Fastest : Overnight model and render (our own design)

Longest : 1.5 year and still going, hundreds of revision.

 

Used to be able to wrap everything up in 2 days max.

Won't do it now, just too lazy, besides, I have seen inside our client's industry, and there is amazingly no deadline that is worth rushing. All deadlines except for competitions are extendable. The only rush is when someone has to kiss @$$ by showing something for the sake of his personal interest. Learn to speak their language and negotiate.

 

The fastest work I have ever seen is my friend's work in a property developer office. Daily condition are like this :Piece of land acquired by big boss that morning, architect work for half a day, and the 3d guy only have time before office closed to finish the viz (again just to show big boss how good their employees can do.... another suck up job)

[STRAT]

what a strange post. job turnarounds are very individualistic to you, your work methods and your client relationship.

 

your initial post at the top there bares absolutely no resemblence to anything i ever do. not even close

 

i couldn't even follow your format. every job is different and i'll approach each job differently literally depending on how i feel on the day.

 

how long is a peice of string???

[Devin Johnston]

Our office is a little different, I do very little modeling because I typically get a fully detailed model from the designer. We use ArchiCAD in house and as a result everything including the kitchen skink is modeled for me through the design process.

 

On average I would say that I spend 12 - 24 hours working on a mid level rendering. That's not to say that I can't do them faster, sometimes I've done as many as 5 renderings in an 8 hour period. I've also done renderings that took me 1 or 2 months to complete, while working on other projects at the same time.

 

I think it's going to be hard to quantify all of this because some companies have multiple people working on a single project while others only have one CG guy. Your also talking about multiple levels of quality and what may be a high quality rendering to one person another may think its only medium quality and it depends on the skill level of each artist.

[the.3dsmax.blogger]

what a strange post. job turnarounds are very individualistic to you, your work methods and your client relationship.

your initial post at the top there bares absolutely no resemblence to anything i ever do. not even close

i couldn't even follow your format. every job is different and i'll approach each job differently literally depending on how i feel on the day.

Its absoultely fine !!! STRAT !!! I am sure We all are aware that each job is different.

 

This post gives us all an oppurtunity to express our diverse workflow, in terms of Time spent per project. Everybody here has very appropriately expressed the same variation.

 

On my part, I have learned a lot about the workflow that each individual/studios use and the diiversity in them, as well as the reasons for them ( to a certain extent ) .

 

This link is more about expressing, rather than syntactical appropiateness!!

[3dworks]

..it would help to attach the images.. sorry about that

 

nice images for one day works! - but frankly, this is the quality that many of the medium size architectural studios here in germany can do with their own inhouse department, software and know how. this 'lo/mid range quality' market is already very small for specialized viz studios in my perception. architects mostly use this level to verify their concepts inhouse.

but on the other side, if you go into a more high-end sector (where the complexity of the models is higher and the techniques used for visualization are much more sophisticated) it is very hard to do a high quality level print work (rendered at least at 6000 pixel) in less than 4 days, at least in my personal experience working as a 'one man' studio (even with networked partners).

unfortunately, i had to do that kind of stress jobs some times and it was working night and day. unfortunately, like jeff put it very well in a message before, many people don't even know how much work is behind the creation such images. they don't mind to ask for it as if it where just a mouse click away!

also, in my experience, the best images always had some days to 'rest' before applying the final touches. a certain temporal distance to the images makes our eyes critical again, allowing for a better refinement.

 

markus

[STRAT]

 

On my part, I have learned a lot about the workflow that each individual/studios use and the diiversity in them, as well as the reasons for them ( to a certain extent ) .

 

This link is more about expressing, rather than syntactical appropiateness!!

 

yeah, it is interesting to see how different people's working methods of job management are from yours.

[IC]

nice images for one day works! - but frankly, this is the quality that many of the medium size architectural studios here in germany can do with their own inhouse department, software and know how. this 'lo/mid range quality' market is already very small for specialized viz studios in my perception. architects mostly use this level to verify their concepts inhouse.

 

I heartily agree with this. The software Architects are using just for drafting now can produce half decent images and a few Architects I know who are earning buttons in Private Practice talk to me about how they can get freelance viz work on the side.

What they don't realise is that this standard just won't cut it for marketing work and is purely for discussion. I churn them out too but when the time comes, I spend days on a single image for brochure work etc. Luckily, tight deadlines never really apply to me for the final image.

 

But with Maxwell and the like on the horizon, who knows? Theoretically, we won't be 'specialists' for much longer.