Improving the quality of my companies work.

[Pauleeeeee]

Hi everyone.

 

 

I'd just like to get your thoughts about something that's been brewing for a while.

 

 

Right now I'm working at a fairly small operation. There's just the two of us but business is good and we're managing with the workload. The problem we're experiencing right now is that we are finding that we are working so much that we have very little time to hone our skills. If I was honest with myself I'd categorize the standard of work that we put out as 'average'. We really want to produce a standard of work that is of very high quality and we are just not happy with what we are producing right now even though our clients seem to be. Time is the main constraint so with that in mind we came up with some ideas on how to improve the quality of our work in the most efficient ways we could think of.

 

 

We've been especially impressed with the work of a few people who post on this forum and others like cgtalk. So our original idea was to contact some of these people to see if they'd be interested in traveling here, all payed for of course, and show us their methods. This would be done by working through two typical projects that we normally get, a residential development and a commercial development. Ideally we would have a very good modeler show us how to correctly and efficiently model these projects. Then a talented texturing artists would come over and continue with those two projects. This would carry on until post production

 

 

Our second idea was to ask some of these people to literally record a project of their's from start to finish (at their own computer, no traveling involved). No editing required, leave in all the mistakes that are made, everything. We would of course pay these people too. We think we could learn a lot from these videos.

 

 

Is this a realistic way of going about improving our output? Any suggestions and proposals are gratefully received and appreciated.

 

 

Many thanks,

 

 

Pauleeeeee

[Brian Cassil]

Can you post some of your work? This could help people in evaluating your ideas for improvements.

[Sawyer]

I would think you would find a lot of interest for personal trainers. It may be hard finding someone who would have the time.

[kippu]

isnt 3das doing this kind of services online ... training ? maybe you can contact brian or take the vismasters course ....

 

of course do post your works

[innerdream]

You could hire another employee if you have enough work who's skill set is more of where you would like to be. And,I would think you could get honest evaluations of your work and apply those tips to your current work load. Also, as a thought Ted Boardman always has great tutorials and I believe he might be able to do a video tutorial for you for a fee.

[chiquito]

Why dont you try archexteriors?

get the same scene, material and everything, and just twaek around the settings on scene, its a good, cheap learning chance. Gnomonworkshop has some tutorials dvds for sale with nice training.

[Mat@MDI-Digital]

Hi Pauleeeeee,

 

i can relate to what youre saying totaly...I pretty much do 95% of all the work on my site, and at anyone time I often have 5-7 jobs on the go, this can mean 10+ houses, 1 or 2 magazine covers and maybe a large/very large advertising job (which could inc many images), all on the go at the same time. While I actualy quite enjoy the pace of it all, and the moneys good too, I find though that I have not produced my best work in a few years now.....i always know that I could do better if I had more time!

 

I see competitors who I know have 3-10 members of staff, and while I try my best to compete with them, I know that its a loosing battle...I eather need to take on less work, or start highering staff myself to keep up, and personaly I would like to take on less work.

 

I see you mention CGTALK, no offence to the quite wonderfull work you see there, but alot of the time the people who produce the best work dont have any deadline, and have all the time in the world to work on these jobs

[Pauleeeeee]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Only getting a chance to reply now as we've been so busy here. By the way, before I go any further I should probably let you know what software we're using right now. We model nearly everything in Vectorworks and Render in Cinema 4D.

Can you post some of your work? This could help people in evaluating your ideas for improvements.

I've attached one of the latest images we've done just so you can get an idea of the standard of work we've been producing.

 

In relation to suggestions that we purchase some titles from Gnomon and the likes, we already have. I'm actually reading two really good books and lighting and texturing at the moment. What I haven't been able to find is a DVD showing someones workflow from start to finish in relation to Arc Viz. The closest I've come to was one or two Gnomon DVDs which were not close enough to what we wanted.

 

One thing we've recently been considering has been to change from vectorworks to another package (ie, archicad). It just seems that Vectorworks can be extremely tempermental and even when we perform 'clean' modelling within the package it just seems to create a mess when exported over to C4D even though we are using an exchange plugin. By mess I mean random vertices floating, etc. A simple (and I mean SIMPLE) extrude along path command with vectorworks has caused us nightmares in the past.

 

Considering all this, do you guys think that the ideas I presented in the first post are feasible or even a good idea?

 

-Pauleeeeee

[innerdream]

Hi again,

 

Your lighting looks harsh and the textures are in need of higher quality. In C4d are you using the sky and sun? They work well together. The camera angle could be improved as well imo. You're not far from having a better product I think.

[Sawyer]

 

Considering all this, do you guys think that the ideas I presented in the first post are feasible or even a good idea?

 

-Pauleeeeee

 

 

I think its a really good idea. I know my learning curve would have been cut by years if instead of everything being trial and error I had some direct help with what I was doing.

[Pauleeeeee]

Hi again,

 

Your lighting looks harsh and the textures are in need of higher quality. In C4d are you using the sky and sun? They work well together. The camera angle could be improved as well imo. You're not far from having a better product I think.

 

Thanks for the suggestions innerdream, we'll work on that.

 

I think its a really good idea. I know my learning curve would have been cut by years if instead of everything being trial and error I had some direct help with what I was doing.

 

I'm glad you think so too. I have one or two people in mind I'd likd to ask. I'd be unsure of what kind of fee to offer them or what they would expect.

 

Also, Mat@MDI-Digital, you mentioned a few posts back that the real quality work that you see on the likes of CG talk and even here is done by people that don't have much of a deadline. I can see your point but if you look at work on this site like this http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/24308-box-house.html you can see that some people are producing very high quality work in a short amount of time. Nelson Design even stated that it took him 3 days to do those renders which is quite good in my opinion.

[alrawli]

What i tend to do is spend a bit time ( when i have it ) setting up lighting rigs. I can then drop models into these when finished and rather than setting up a new set of lights i just need to tweak the setup a bit.

 

SImple things like good quality textures and bump maps add alot of percieved detail to a scene and can really make it stand out.

[Eric]

I think it is a very good idea. However, I see it being very, very expensive. The person would need passports, fly to your location, hotel, food, replacing lost wages, etc. Then, when you're done, you may have learned one aspect, but then you'd have to do it again for the next phase of the project (you mentioned bringing in a modeler, then a texturer, etc.). You might be better served by simply posting your work on a regular basis, and/or asking others how they specifically did something in their own work. What you'll find is that there is dozens of ways to accomplish the same thing. What works for one is hard for another, but their overall quality of output may be the same.

 

Someone mentioned earlier in this thread that you should hire someone that has the skills you're looking for. I totally agree!

 

I heard someone recently say (I think I was listening to an audio book) if you're the smartest person in your company, you're in big trouble! You need to hire smart people, manage them well, and treat them even better, and your company will grow beyond your wildest dreams.

 

You never know, you might get lucky and someone needs to take a vacation and is willing to come hang out with you for a day or three and provide you the services you are looking for.

[Pauleeeeee]

Eric, the idea of hiring another employee that has the skills we're looking for is a great one and we'd be hoping to hire not just one but a good few of these said employees in the future. The problem right now is that we are just not equipped to take on another employee right now.

 

What about the other idea I mentioned in my first post? How about getting someone we really like the work of to record a project of their's from start to finish and then sending it to us so we can see their work flow from start to beginning, mistakes and all. It doesn't have to be anything flash, no editing or anything like that.

[Sawyer]

It seems to me if you have the money the best bet is to have someone train you on your machines set up your files and with your workflow in mind.

[Eric]

Pauleeeeee, if you have someone you really like that is using the same software you are (or one of the programs you're thinking of switching to, but it makes most sense to stick with what you already use because any other programs won't benefit you immediately), then it can't hurt to ask. Throw some money their way, and you're even more likely to get them to actually send you a video.

 

Frankly, I'd be honored if someone ever approached me out of the blue and asked me to do something like what you're looking for. It would be a pain to actually record my workflow, but money has a way of convincing people.

 

Your best bet would be to outsource one of your projects, and final payment would be contingent on receipt of the recorded workflow video. If they don't send the video, they only get something like 75% of the total fee. You would of course need to pay a little extra because no one likes to work at 100%+ from start to finish, and the added hassle of starting/pausing to surf the internet, take a poo brake, eat, etc., remembering to start recording again, etc. - you get the idea. Bottom line - it's an added service - just like you'd charge extra for two views of the same building instead of just one view - it doesn't take much more work for the second view, but you still charge extra.

 

What price is reasonable? If you do what I just suggested and hire a contractor to produce a rendering for one of your projects - you're really at the mercy of whatever that particlar person you envy charges for one of his own projects. Tack on maybe another 5-10% for the video trouble, and see if anyone accepts your proposal. I would still make sure they agree that the total fee is contingent on receipt of the video - otherwise you would have done the rendering yourself and had no other use in hiring the person in the first place.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Frankly, this is a pretty good idea. Maybe something for the next CGA competition to require from the final contestants? I'd love to watch start to finish videos submitted from the top level artists. If they were of good enough quality, I might even buy one!

[alexg]

Asking a professional to give out his production secret will be very costly. Besides, not many have the talent of teaching.

 

Why not trying to attend a 3d course? It will be cheaper and they are run by professional tutors that should be quite good and have in-depth understanding of the skills.

[deepCG]

I think to deal with a good trainer face to face is better than bunch of good DVD training sets, simply because the DVD sets have already a single-minded courses. In addition, while watching them you will get tens of unanswered questions. So this way couldn’t be used to do training for someone to be an architect or civil engineer or….;-).

 

I am not saying by any means that the video training is not good or not valid. Nevertheless, it covers pretty well an issue like modeling, environment, texturing….other than that you cannot get a full context of making, moving and animating full textured character with full environment and lights. Video training is good when you’re beginner or intermediate , After that when you are at advanced level ;then the things are more complicated and sometimes no one would help you else than yourself.

 

At the beginning of our learning most of us needed to invite someone to teach us the right and the fastest way to accomplish our work perfectly. It is fast way but not in a week or even two. However, it is better than searching the forums day and night for some piece of info that trainer could help you with at the beginning of your career.

 

If you are using 3ds max then go to those great idea at VI http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/VI/default.asp

 

It would be a great idea to get together all those ideas in a workflow video training that covers the architectural visualization. From A to Z, from polylines in CAD to the final touches in the postproduction software. I will ask Mr. Jeff if it is applicable to do that as a video when I have time.

 

Best,

[Frosty]

What i tend to do is spend a bit time ( when i have it ) setting up lighting rigs. I can then drop models into these when finished and rather than setting up a new set of lights i just need to tweak the setup a bit.

 

I agree with this and I'll share one of my own that I've been sing on exteriors for about 4 yrs. Use it without GI and see what you think. Tweak each ring of lights andthe sun independently.