Freelance-Giving Project Files?

[Cookiepus]

A client has asked me to give him the Max files, models, textures etc

which I made to complete his project.

The deliverables are just two images.

It sounds a bit dodgy but he is paying me to do the project.

Is there a standard on this issue?

Thanks Guys

[AJLynn]

Usually you wouldn't give him the model files. It would be like giving the clients the rights to our architectural drawings - they're paying us to help get the building built, the drawings are our tools, unless they've negoriated for that in the contract. If it's not in a contract, they'd need to renegotiate for them.

[BrianKitts]

if you do reach an agreement such that he is paying you for the model, be careful that you don't distribute any copyrighted material, such as textures or model libraries that you have used in the creation of your images. And make sure he knows up front what he would receive if you did release the model.

 

But like andrew said, if he paid you for images..... that doesn't mean he just gets the model too.

[Jim Mann]

Tell him how much the model will cost and see if he still wants it.

 

Sometimes I pass on the model and maps, other times do so for a fee. It depends on the circumstances and our relationship with the clients as much as anything else as to how to deal with this. I always ensure that I am only agreeing to provide images/animation at the outset but better business relationships come from being flexible.

 

Do you know what the client wants the files for?

 

JM

[Cookiepus]

Thanks for the advice Guys

I would be leaning towards Jim's approach.

I guess sometime in the future he might want to develop the site and make changes and dosen't want to pay another guy to do it all over again.

[Jim Mann]

I guess sometime in the future he might want to develop the site and make changes and dosen't want to pay another guy to do it all over again.

 

I would ask for a fee in that case. You will be passing on potential income. I always think of it in terms of what the client would do under the same circumstances i.e. if he held something that was valuable to you or anybody else for that matter (even if it was of no value to him) do you suppose that he would just give it to you for free or would he want something in return? I also think that by putting a fee against the model illustrates the value of your work and skill.

 

Good luck!

 

Jim

[Sawyer]

I think being flexible is the key but...

 

You give up your model maybe you were in a hurry and fudged some things, fixed them in ps. Maybe your model gets in the hands of a novice in house 3d guy who uses mental ray and you use FR. He doesn't like how you did something, thinks he could do it better/cheaper. Now your work is being judge not by the final image which was what the contract was for - but the quality of your modeling or whatever. Maybe you use a plugin that they don't have and everything comes in goofy on their end. Or maybe they don't use gi at all use scanline, they make changes it looks kind of goofy but it still is passed off as your work. This has happened to me once where a quick change was made an in-house guy did it not me and really screwed up the perspective of the piece he added on. But to most people the image was passed off as mine. Not too happy but I let it pass as I still get a nice amount of work from them and it didn't really bug me till much later when I was at home thinking about it.

 

Anyway I wouldn't give up a model unless it was stipulated in the contract at the begining. Thats me.

[joseph alexander]

He may be sending your model to another rendering office. Ask him/her point blank if he/she is. Otherwise i would send it with an e-mail stating that it is specifically for their use and not to be distributed to anyone outside of their office as it is your intellectual property and they would be held liable if it was. Also state that if they did want to transfer the model, the models value would be equal to the project fee. Mention that stating this is a formality, and that you trust them.

We've had guys model some of our building to to a very detailed level and we like to zoom in close and see how details look in 3D. If that's what they're using it for they'll love it if you send them the models.

 

-Joe

[joseph alexander]

OH... don't include textures viewports or lighting.. Absolutely not.

[alexg]

In my own experience, once the client get hold of the maxfile, they just send it to other firms, or just spread it around their inhouse staff to study. That only means no more work for you.

 

We never give our maxfile with texture, lighting setting, and meshes. We do sometimes give out out the 3d cad or maxfile with plain modelling only, nothing else.

 

When you eat a nice food at restaurant, when you pay do you expect to get the recipe as well ? I don't think so.

Same goes with 3d.

[3D_IC]

I would apply a standard grey material to everything and set the render to scan line. Delete all lights cameras etc. Then the model is pretty much useless for gleaning ideas on lighting and materials.

 

Offer the model for a fee as mentioned before. If they complain about the grey scale basic model not having materials just tell them its to prevent any cross render engine problems. This has worked for me in the past.

 

When they ask for the model you can safely say goodby to the client in my experience. They are either going to try inhouse 3d or use someone cheaper, and less quality so charge for the privelage, call it a buy out.

[Sketchrender]

This has happened to us, in the company , an architectural company, on a number of occations.

One wanted it for the local council to bring it into skectup, so as to place it in a full area model.

The other and he was up front about it, said that he wanted to send it on to a rendering firm who specialise in commerical property renderings, and they did a good job, but changed a few vital things that we wouldn't, as it would get us in trouble, it was not going to be accurate from an internal lighting point of view.

 

 

Ask them what is it for, or you could say that you have only modeled what is in the images ie the back of the buildings are no done, and will be useless.

It all depneds on the client, and the relationship with them.

We are asked all the time , but we are an in house viz team, and we expect it.

Then again , we are tring to move very very slowly to a all model drawing situation ie BIM at some stage in the future, and we have to always model the entire building , as Solar studies are generally required also.

 

let me know how you get on please.

you could put in your standard contact agreement, form now on, and state the fee.

phil

[Stephen Thomas]

Interesting points all round. On the one hand, to use the photographic field as an analogy, a photographer would be very reluctant to hand over negatives along with prints if commissioned to take a series of images. On the other hand in our Architecture office we are constantly expected to share drawings with other members of the design team etc. At least in this case there is always the option of the DWF format, which allows for viewing, printing and commenting only. This is as much to preserve the integrity of your drawing as anything else, does nothing similar exist for 3d?

[joseph alexander]

That's an extremely good point! Isn't there a way to capture the OPENGL model and export that??? If we recieve a model to study in that format that would be fine for us.

Doesn't revit have something like that?

 

-joe

[carlangas]

When they ask for the model you can safely say goodby to the client in my experience. They are either going to try inhouse 3d or use someone cheaper, and less quality so charge for the privelage, call it a buy out.

 

I agree with that, I had a similar situation in which the client made a BIG fuzz about me not willing to give him my 3d file complete with textures, lighting, 3rd party 3d models,etc.. he would just could not understand I coulndt do that. in the end he just said that that was very unprofessional of me. That was the last project I did for them....

[joseph alexander]

I wonder if it would be possible for Jeff to set something up on this website called "General Practice Procedures" which would be a part of the website which professionals would refer clients to. It would state general business practices for CG professionals, such as giving out 3D content, typical contracts, etc. It would be a way for professionals to refer clients to a industry standard and not get taken advantage of. You would have a legal disclaimer at the front stating that these represent common practices, and not laws.

I think he'd have a few hundred members who would appreciate that.

 

 

Is this a possibility?

 

-Joe

[Arnold Gallardo]

A good reference for this is also the Graphic Arts Guild handbook:

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Artists-Guild-Handbook-Guidelines/dp/0932102115

 

 

since there isn't one for the cg-arch community. Ethical guidelines and such are also discussed. Yes, you need to be very specific with your client about havoing access to the 3D files. Most job's specify image output or video output only and have nothing to do with 'source file' access. That's always is negotiated and priced differently, normally computed based on future revenue possibilities. That's worse than signing up an 'All Rights' transfer because 'multiple derivative work' can be made form it!!!!

[Sawyer]

On the other hand in our Architecture office we are constantly expected to share drawings with other members of the design team etc. At least in this case there is always the option of the DWF format, which allows for viewing, printing and commenting only. This is as much to preserve the integrity of your drawing as anything else, does nothing similar exist for 3d?

 

But with that you could not take one offices cad files and bring them to another archi and have them use the work. Sharing archi files with a structural engineer is needed to have unified work, sharing 3d model files is not a standard and something that should be thought about on a case by case basis.

[jsf]

Since you are working in in 3dsMAX offer your client the model as a DWF file. It's easy to make, use the Export - Publish to DWF feature. Your client can spin the model around and it will have textures, but can't be saved or exported to another format.

 

If your client is insistent about the texture maps, consider a watermark on the textures you can legally give away.

 

If you end up giving the model away without negotiating a fee for it, you could strip it of lights, materials, selection sets, groups, and cameras etc., and do a boolean-union to create a single mesh.

[FlytE]

The client is commissioning you as an artist to produce an image for them. They are effectively buying your time and ability to produce a piece of art for them and your chosen tool to create this art is a computer and associated 3D modelling software. This does not by default entitle them to the model that you used to create the image. When you were approached by the client, did they ask you to make them an image, or did they ask you to build them a model?....

 

If you decide to give the model out, I would get some sort of agreement from them about where the model is going. And yes, wipe it clean of lights, mats and settings.

[Noise]

The only reason that a client would want the model & textures is to give it to someone else that uses max. I personally would be very interested in their reasons for wanting the model.

 

Standard practice is to not give out the model and this should be written in your contract so there is no misunderstanding.

 

If the client is insistant, as mentioned - strip it of lights and cameras and merge the geometry into one object and remove textures.

 

Most certainly try to find out what they want the model for and try to figure out a solution which doesn't involve giving them the full working model.

[landrvr1]

Hate to say it, but legal precedent holds in favor of the clients. Architects, graphic designers, and web designers have learned long ago to put specific verbage into their contracts that spells out who owns the source files and what the usage terms are.

 

They didn't add these clauses because they were winning cases and arguments. They added the language because, at least here in Chicago, they got hammered in the courts in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

Digital copyright laws are still very much a mess; with verdicts and rulings often going against what the written laws are stating - usually on the basis of some nitpicky or bizarre point. The net is full of articles in which getting a clear answer is all but impossible.

[colinsmith]

Presumably though, if things have gone THAT far downhill and you are ordered to turn over files by the court, there is nothing to prevent you bouncing them as far down some obscure file format as you can get them? Since there must have been nothing specific in the contract?

[AJLynn]

Going to court is almost always the worst case scenario - presumably if they're actually willing to sue you, you negotiate.

[ronel]

Most of the time i just give the image files only. When he ask for the max, 3ds and texture files its another matter. we just give our client a ride not the car so he can drive by himself. Here in our place you can find many clients like that, sometimes after they get the image files, they dont show themselves. Just leaving a note , they are waiting for the approval and so on. So what i do is i make an S.O.P for myself ( Standard Operating Procedure). I give them print out copy, and the image files. ( but i put security parameters to the image files, they can just view it on thier computer, but they cant copy it, nor they cant save it to another format, nor they cant print it) i give them the acces as soon they paid for my service.