Determining what to produce

[Devin Johnston]

This is a question to those of you who work in midsized to large firms; how does your firm determine how many renderings and animations a project is eligible for? Up to now it has been up to the designer on the project to say whether or not his project needs visualization work, and usually 90% of our projects will have at least one rendering done for it. Lately I've been noticing that very large projects of say $100 million or more will get a handful of renderings and one animation while smaller projects will get just as many and sometimes more depending on the importance of the project. To me it seems backwards, I think the more expensive the project the more work that should be generated and I've had several people higher up than me express the same feelings. I know it shouldn’t be about quantity but I think the client's of these large projects expect more than they are getting. Anyway I'm trying to come up with some guidelines to help our people determine how much rendering work should be done on any given project. Any ideas or advice is greatly appreciated.

[Frosty]

Thats a complex question Devin and I don't think is a simple answer. In my experience each project needs its own set of visualiztions... be it colored plans, elevations, axonometrics, perspectives, animations or simulations. Some projects require images for fund raising, some require images for community or governing approvals.

 

But I do understand what you're hinting at and it has confused me in the past as well.

[Justin Hunt]

We have a similar problem, basically it comes down to whats in the architectural budget and who is working on it. After a long time the directors have finally come to understand that animations should be under a separate fee as it take up alot of resources, as such limits ofther projects that have it built into the arch fees.

 

Also some designers just dont know when enough is enough and ask for more and more images. I think my record is 32 images for a plaza area, with each having to be updated as the design developed.

 

On other projects the fee just doent matter, its more a case of keeping the client happy.

 

 

jhv

[katkatemos]

Definitely, there is a need to separate the charge for the final presentation materials such as animations and perspectives, intended for marketing purposes. Medium to large architectural firms should have a separate department intended for presentation works only, hence, a new set of employees=different fees other than the main architectural fee. Most clients expect presentation materials to be free or rather, to be included with the architectural fee, but the truth is, like planning and designing, it requires a lot of work and resources to push through, and its responsibility to sell the project should not be under-estimated.

[Devin Johnston]

Unfortunately the bosses have decided that although visualizations are a very important service we offer when it comes down to it we give them away for free. There are some instances where a client has requested viz work that is above and beyond what we normally provide but it doesn’t happen that often. It's a given that with most jobs we will do a certain number of renderings and animations to be determined by the designer. I'm just trying to figure out how much work should be done on any give project so we minimize cost but also don't under deliver on the bigger jobs.

[bluedogok]

We "give away" more than I think we should at our office but it does vary wildly depending upon client and project. We work mostly with developers and I realize some may need more to get financing, the large firm that I worked at before was mostly repeat work. The industrial projects didn't need color rendering but the other types always got some treatment. I don't think you can easily say that every project should have a certain percentage of fee dedicated to rendering as many larger projects with greater cost may not require as much imaging as it may have more fee in other areas that do not require imaging. Some of the smaller projects that I have worked on had much more "detail" to them than some of the "mega" projects.

 

To me 3D color images created directly out of Revit (not using Mental Ray or Accurender) are fine included in a package whether it is marketing or production work, maybe a couple of stills done in Max at the most. Anything else should be handled as a separate item.

[BrianKitts]

I completely agree with what you're getting at, and I really think it is something we need to think about and get it under control. Although my take on it isn't so much that we are under delivering on large projects and over-delivering on small ones..... what I'm seeing is that everything is getting overdone.

 

In my experience as much as we want to try to regulate visualization it's normally dictated by what it takes to make the client happy. At least regarding stills that is. Animation work is normally kept under control, but when it comes to the stills....unhappy client = more visualization. Unimaginative client that "doesn't get it" = more visualization. Even over excited designers and principals = more visualization

 

I would rather focus on making less images of higher quality and better detail. But the wonderful world of BIM has made the powers that be believe that we can and should visualize everything we do with the project. My last project ended with four aerials on each corner, perspectives of all four entries, closeups on each of those four entries, renderings of the energy plant....far and close, two street vistas three more pure eye candy shots, a view from the neighboring highway, four rendered elevations and a rendered plan. Yes it's a 1.3 billion dollar project, but a lot of the shots were repetitious and in my opinion superfluous. I wish I was exaggerating.... but I'm not.

 

I think you are headed in the right direction that an outline should be set in place weighing a quantity of visualization over the budget/size of a project. At least in my case it's the principals who make the promises that need to be given a guide, luckily quantifying this in a time / money / budget scenario is something they should be able to grasp, but you will always fight the argument of we need to please the client.... which I do agree, but we need to be careful what is promised.

[Justin Hunt]

Once again I say its down to budget, more often then not the budget should dictate how and how much visualisation can be done.

 

Main problem with over zelouse designers is that viz seen as a design tool rather than a givaway to the client. As such they dont see anything wrong in 1000's of views so long as it aiding the design. They loose sight in the fact hat its eating into the overall profit. By then its too late.

 

There is a basic understanding in our office that if its not part of the design development then its charged for.

 

jhv

[Devin Johnston]

I think you are headed in the right direction that an outline should be set in place weighing a quantity of visualization over the budget/size of a project.

 

 

 

There is a basic understanding in our office that if its not part of the design development then its charged for.

jhv

 

These will be on my list.