Please Advise on renders - who should be doing them and what is the timeframe?

[bob332]

my wife is working on a multi-million dollar project and needs some 3d renders done. she has asked the architect and also the people that are doing the internal design but for some reason nobody has come up with them. $$$ (within reason) is not a problem with this project so she can't figure out what the problem is as she asked them both 10days ago for something.

 

she needs to know who is at fault - the architect or the interior people? she needs renders for both so i am assuming both people need to be questioned - the architect for the elevation renders and the interior people for the interior renders. near photo quality renders would be needed, but i really can't see how that is problem with todays software and hardware power. size of the output would need to be ~3'x4' and mounted on a backboard.

 

am i oversimplifying this? is creating these renders harder and would require more than 10days of work?

 

what files are needed to do these renders? the plans for the entire building are available, inlcuding the old building and this add-on.

 

since $$$ is not really an issue can we take the files to anybody to render them?

 

also, since $$$ is not really an issue, how hard is rendering and what programs are used? is this something that you need a degree in to do? could i buy the software and do the renders on my machine here at home and then take them to alphagraphix and have them printed out and mounted?

 

please help as she needs this done for an upcoming event.

 

thanks in advance for your time

[cullen]

Bob,

 

First I would like to address who is responsible. If the renderings were never a part of the written contract signed by the Architectural Firm and the Interior Design Firm, neither party is responsible. At my office we have been asked many times to produce a rendering (not in our contract) at the last minute. If not in the original contract, we call this an additional service and charge extra for it. One of the main issues with this is that we schedule our projects so closely that we don’t always have the time to do this. High quality renderings are time consuming. When this happens, we sometimes have to tell our client we can not provide the service.

 

To determine if the job could be completed in 10 days, we would need to know the complexity of the design and the number of views to be rendered. The files needed are the cad backgrounds and elevations. If all the plans are available it would be ideal to pull info from the plans, sections, elevations and details if needed.

 

The next issue is the time frame that you need the renderings completed by. If this is a rush job your prices can get very expensive, very quick. Personally I would advise against trying to do the renderings yourself. This is a skill set that is learned and takes many years to “master”. If you search through the Finished Work part of the forum you will see a wide variety of skill sets.

 

For the price of renderings, it’s always best to think, “You get what you pay for.” If you want a high quality rendering, you are going to pay high dollar. If paying by the hour you may be looking in the upwards of $100 - $200 per hour. Some people charge by the view. Once again, a more experienced person will charge more. I personally have seen renderings that go for $8,000 per view.

 

As for needing someone to get this done for you, I bet there are many people in this forum that would jump at the opportunity. If you are after a specific quality or work, request samples of previous renderings. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know what the person you hire can provide.

 

If you are to contact someone in the forum for services, I would suggest keeping “business” contact off of the forum. Most members have their websites or e-mails inside their profiles.

 

Hope this helps.

 

crw

[bob332]

cullen,

 

thanks for the reply. as far as the contract details i am not sure. to be honest since my wife was not on the project since its inception, i am going to assume, since she is sleeping at the moment, that it was probably not part of the original project - always nice to get put into something that others have started. so i guess it would be an additional service.

 

as far as the number of views, 2 would suffice.

 

unfortunately dates were made, some information went out to people and then dates were put back due to weather, city code compliance, and a couple of other issues that were basically out of everybodies hands, etc. now an event is coming up and instead of having pics of the new facilty that is functioning, only about 1/2 of the shell of the build is completed.

 

thanks for the recommendation for me not to attempt to do the renderings myself, i am sure i would have driven myself crazy failing at it

 

i will convey this information to my wife tomorrow

 

thanks for your time and knowledge,

bob

[manta]

Its hard to say if 10 days is reasonable, you say its a multi-million dollar facility, so it depends on what kind of place it is...for instance, a warehouse would be about a hundred times easier than a hotel, even if they were the same size, the hotel would require hundreds of textures and furnature models...

 

If its just a simple structure with simple interiors then 10 days would be reasonable, providing that they were given ALL the information on day ONE...

[ShaunDon]

Ten business days should be ample time to create a still rendering of most projects -- the vast majority of our visualizations are modeled in week one and rendered in week two. If the client takes too long in getting us their feedback we may not arrive at the final image in those two weeks, but most of the contracts we have with clients stipulate that we are to deliver 10 business days after receipt of signed contract and the down payment. So no, I don't think ten days is unreasonable at all.

 

However generally these renderings cost anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000 (dependent on scope) to produce, so if neither the architects or interior designers were specifically contracted to deliver renderings of the project, they're not likely to do it anyway. Of course they should have told your wife this ten days ago so that she would have known and could contract with a visualization firm to do the project.

 

Good luck!

Shaun

[diegofer_9]

"how hard is rendering and what programs are used? is this something that you need a degree in to do? could i buy the software and do the renders on my machine here at home and then take them to alphagraphix and have them printed out and mounted?".....

 

I guess you've no experience at all with computer renderings? I am sorry to be the only one that takes this personal, but how can one assume that creating a good rendering is easy and doesnt require a degree in anything?

 

That would be like saying...well, creating a design is so simple, you just get a software where you can draw lines and then you start putting rooms together, one next to the other, and voila!

 

The fact that money is not a problem, doesnt mean that everything comes out easily.

 

Plenty of people here could render your job and give you excellent images. I would just post it in the jobs section, but definetly, leave it to the pros. Rendering is now considered a specialized practice, and there are in fact proffesionals in the business. Is not an add on attached to architectural projects.

 

Good luck to your wife! and sorry if my comments sound rude, I just had to comment what I think.

 

Best,

[ShaunDon]

Wow Diego, I obviously skimmed his post. Good catch. I can't tell you the number of times people have called our office when they see one of our images in a magazine asking "So can I buy software to do this? And will it come with all the furniture you've used?"

 

Architectural rendering requires (1) understanding of architectural plans and what they mean in terms of the actual finished building. You need to know what the plans call for and, even more importantly, what details they DON'T include but will be added in construction. You can spot a model from someone with little to no architectural background immediately, and it destroys the illusion.

 

And (2), you must have artistic talent and training in composition, design, color theory, etc -- all the elements that go into making an exciting image that is going to get your building approved or sell it to potential buyers. Producing an image that does anything less than that is time wasted.

 

Don't feel bad. Most people think we folks just push "render" buttons and charge people through the nose for it. We deal with this all the time. But don't ever discount the importance of experience and training in the creation of beautiful and effective illustrations.

 

Shaun

[bob332]

"how hard is rendering and what programs are used? is this something that you need a degree in to do? could i buy the software and do the renders on my machine here at home and then take them to alphagraphix and have them printed out and mounted?".....

 

I guess you've no experience at all with computer renderings? I am sorry to be the only one that takes this personal, but how can one assume that creating a good rendering is easy and doesnt require a degree in anything?

 

That would be like saying...well, creating a design is so simple, you just get a software where you can draw lines and then you start putting rooms together, one next to the other, and voila!

 

The fact that money is not a problem, doesnt mean that everything comes out easily.

 

Plenty of people here could render your job and give you excellent images. I would just post it in the jobs section, but definetly, leave it to the pros. Rendering is now considered a specialized practice, and there are in fact proffesionals in the business. Is not an add on attached to architectural projects.

 

Good luck to your wife! and sorry if my comments sound rude, I just had to comment what I think.

 

Best,

 

diego, shaun and anybody else that took offense to my question "how hard is rendering and what programs are used? is this something that you need a degree in to do? could i buy the software and do the renders on my machine here at home and then take them to alphagraphix and have them printed out and mounted?" - don't take offense as i am ignorant to 3d modeling/rendering and that is why i asked. i do not know the complexities of it whatsoever.

 

the reason i even asked the question is because i have had good luck and picked up photography (more than 20yrs ago), photoshop, illustrator, web design, print layout and video editing at least to a prosumer level rather quickly and it came quite easily to me, but have never taken anything to 3d.

 

i don't feel that you guys "just push a button" by any means and understand that what you do is a respected profession.

[manta]

Don't worry about it Bob, I didn't take any offence to it, its an EXTREAMLY common misconception, so much so, that its hard to even explain what I do to someone who has never used 3d animation software...I start talking about how massive amounts of polygons will slow down the Global illumination calculations, and they tend to look at me like I have ten heads...

[jvlive]

Hi guys,

 

Bob, I saw this thread yesterday and i was expecting it to be flamed by now because of your "how hard is rendering...." bit. I knew it was gonna get to a few nerves here, I was even tempted to reply:"yes, you are oversimplifying." But because of Cullen's well written explanation you were able to understand.

I guess the main thing here is public education. So dont just tell your wife what you just learned, tell it to everyone. Dont believe the hollywood/autodesk hype that design development flows seamlessly from the paper napkin to plans to elevations to photorealistic rendering. It doesnt. That's why there's rendering professionals because architects cant do it. If software can do it seamlessly, architects would just do up their plans and when they're done, they'd push the "render" button themselves. Like manta said, its a common misconception.

 

Good luck!

[bob332]

thanks for not flaming as no disrespect was meant. i also wasn't sure how the exponential surge in computing power had helped out this particular industry, especially with the ability for smaller firms to have small render farms due to the cost of the actual hardware being quite a bit less than say 5yrs ago. or am i way off again with this thinking and the actual creation takes much more time than the rendering?

 

could somebody send me a link to a good wiki page that give a flowchart so i can educate myself on how the whole process goes? i would really appreciate it.

 

my wife got an email out of the blue saying the renders were done, but she hasn't seen them yet. should be interesting...

 

i again thank you all for your knowledge

[Sawyer]

Bob - I don't know if there is a good representative example that would illustrate how a workflow is supposed to go. Jobs vary and many different variables affect the time of a project. Rendering can take minutes, hours or days. Animations can take weeks just to render the frames. Personally I have never missed a deadline but I know that images I have done would have looked better if I had more time. There are software that could make buildings really quickly and render them quickly but I think if you found an illustrator you really liked and watched how they work you would be astonished how much work they put into the project to make it look good. STAPLES sells a cad like floorplan creator that will create plans and "render" them for you and its pretty simple and quick and I think that without exception it is not very pretty to look at and not what you would call photo real. The good illustrators (and there are many here) adopt a workflow that is really mroe akin to real modeling and a direct relative of the the high end 3d work you see in a big budget movie. So yes you can create this stuff really quickly and no you would not be happy with it.

[manta]

Hey Bob,

see the problem with the hardware is the more we get the more we use, things we would not have considered doing five years ago, like unbiased rendering, huge amounts of polygons, GI for animations, and huge texture files, we do them now because we can, I could probably create and render the movie TOY STORY on my laptop, but back then it took probably a whole room full of computers to do...

[bob332]

Hey Bob,

see the problem with the hardware is the more we get the more we use, things we would not have considered doing five years ago, like unbiased rendering, huge amounts of polygons, GI for animations, and huge texture files, we do them now because we can, I could probably create and render the movie TOY STORY on my laptop, but back then it took probably a whole room full of computers to do...

 

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