New to Architectural Viz - but not 3D - General Questions..

[CrazyDamo]

Hello,

 

I'm currently looking at changing the direction of my career as a 3D artists and focusing on contract work in Architectural Visualization. I have been working primarily in Games with a bit of work in TVC and Film for almost 11 years, and I'm looking for a new challenge. I have a strong belief that the Architectural and visualization side of the industry might have a little more longevity and stability than the current state of affairs in computer games (some may disagree?) - and coupled with a passion for good architecture (studied for one year at UNI) I thought it would be the best move for the future.

 

I have some general questions (some may seem very 'noob' - so please bear with me) about this side of the industry and would apreciate some feedback:

 

1st and foremost - What is the usual approach to gaining work in this industry? - do people usually work as free agents bidding for single jobs/contracts? Or is a vast majority of the work now done in visualization firms/architectural firms, with full time workers? I'm making an educated guess there is allot of contract work available based on reading through this forum and other sites.

 

2nd - I have no idea of gauging expectations from clients in this field. If given a 'typical' job size (if there is such a thing - lets say a single residential building - 2 floors, 5 bedrooms, living room, kitchen, garage, front and back yard) - what is the usual time given to complete a job like this as :

a) a set of still render images (modeling/texturing/lighting/render),

b) a 2 min animation fly through (or build-up) - (modeling/texturing/lighting/animation/composite/render)

c) a playable demonstration/fly through using a Realtime 3D engine (UDK/Unity/Ogre), (which would require modeling/texturing/lighting/animation/integration/tech-art)?

 

3rd - I have seen some jobs advertised for 3D Visualisation in the architectural industry with architectural firms - but have already found that I won't even be in contention for the job based on the fact I don't have a degree as an architect - (or similar background - which I'm not sure about). Are there any global pre-requisites to work in this field? I found it a bit odd that if an architecture student has the stamina and will to complete a 5-6 year degree that firms would expect graduates to work in visualization rather than on actual architectural design - not to mention that given there are a lot of others like myself who have worked more than 10 years to specialize in 3D and visualization - you could easily slot someone like my self into the role and the let the architects concentrate on design rather than fiddle with 3D packages (not that I am de-valuing my role at all ).

 

I'm leaving the games industry at lead artist level (a good note to leave on), but I don't don't want to jump into a new industry without doing a little bit of research first - so any help is much appreciated.

 

Cheers

D.

[Justin Hunt]

1: Both, In-house has become alot more popular again, having said that, what with alot of lay-offs in recent times many have moved to freelance. Quite alot do both

 

2: such an open ended question, it depends on alot of things and it can range from a day to years. Designs change, clients can be indecisive and keep on tweaking, there can be alot of detail or best of all some clients will accept anything.

 

3: Some say it is nessesary to have a degree, some dont. I am in the ,"not nesssesary as long as you have an excellent understanding of architecture and can bring other skills to the table", camp. If you are going for an in-house job, most of the time you will be tied up in design development models where the info is sketchy and you will have to fill in the blanks. So whilst it will help having a degree, often its overkill (in my opinion). So dont let it hold you back. Having a strong portfolio, that covers a wide range of presentation types, ie conceptural, photorealistic , real time etc, will be very important.

 

Good luck and keep us posted as to how you progress

 

jhv

[CrazyDamo]

Thanks Justin.

 

I guess my second question was a little more confused. What I was asking about what more to do with time scheduling/budget - if there is a standard expectation for jobs of certain sizes? As an example, if I was to budget time to build a game ready 'car' for a high-end Gen 3 console computer game, I would budget 3-4 weeks (probably erring on the side of 4 weeks for contingency planning). This would include modeling the car from scratch, 1 or two revisions on the model (based on client feedback), a set of LOD models (Level of Detail), Uv'd and a full set of textures, and all parts/hierarchy setup ready for export to the game engine (tested).

So 4 weeks = 1 artist for 1 Car, approx 152 Man hours (with 8% of that a contingency for sickness/time off etc)

 

If I was to bid on a job to visualization a complete residential 5 Bed house - how long would an architectural client expect this to be complete? - given you model based on their designs, texture, light render and composite a final image - with an expectation of at least 2 revisions?

 

I know this is a tough question due to its vagueness, but I'm trying to gauge if there is an expectation for budgeted time - and as a knock-on effect - this would effect the 'quote' for the work done - ie 'This will be X number of man hours at $X an hour'.

 

Or maybe I'm going about this the wrong way - any ideas or reading material I could look into would be much appreciated as well

 

Cheers

D.

[Justin Hunt]

I understood the question, and most of the time that sort of assessment can only be done once youve seen some drawings and talked to client to guage what is expected. So no there isn't a "standard" time scale. Experience it becomes easier to estimate how long things take, but you already know that.

 

For instance I'd charge more for a highly ornate classical house than an unlta moden, mimalist one. I'd separate the fee of the exterior views from the interior views as interior's can take much longer to get right. A design was complete and locked in is cheaper than a design development model, where little of the design is thought through and design changes will evolve as the architects see the model.

 

Whilst the fees are based on the man hour$ + profit they are presented differently depending on whether your in-house or freelancing. In-house is usually a $/hour rate and freelance $/image rate.

 

jhv

[CrazyDamo]

Thanks Justin,

 

Thats actually cleared allot of stuff up for me. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer this stuff. I'll continue to post in the future as I dig deeper into this biz. I plan on having a couple of chats with a local Architects over the next 3 weeks, general Q&A about individual jobs and what they would expect or have had experience with. Your answer has defiantly given me a great starting point - really appreciated thank you.

 

Cheers

D.