The CG Industry

[Enischuo]

I am currently an Interior Architecture and Design student with the thoughts of getting more involved in CG for architectural illustration. However, one of my instructors--with a degree in Architecture--feels that the industry is waning and not a good direction to go. What do you think?

 

His thoughts - My best advice is to learn how to model 3D in AutoCad. Forget about the max for now. This is an extremely difficult field for architecture. First, it's a rare, rare client that wants this done. It takes overwhelming man hours to make one model. Usually, the clients that we're talking about are mega corporations building extremely high profile projects. High rises in South East Asia for example. There is some work for high end corporate interiors, but more in the dot com era. You need to be connected with the kinds of firms who need this sort of stuff, and the vast majority don't. Even in the Bay Area, there are precious few who make a go of this full time. And they have international reputations for what they do. Second, it involves extremely long nights at the computer, with all the blinds closed and the lights off during the day, and they pay is relatively low for what you'd make as an architectural draftsman.

[Iain Denby]

His thoughts would have been true 10 years ago, but not now.

 

You can make a good living.

I can produce better images quicker than it took me to do it using traditional techniques.

I have very small clients as well as big corporations.

You don't need to work long hours.

You don't need the blinds closed iether!

[Brian Cassil]

LOL! I'd say your proffessor better described most architects! Lot's of work for low pay.

 

Seriously though I would say about 80% of what he said is false. Rather than say what that is I'll pick out the couple of things that were accurate IMHO.

 

- "one of my instructors--with a degree in Architecture--feels that the industry is waning..." Maybe, it's really hard to say. David Wright who wrights (hehe) a regular column on CGA has had a lot to say about that. Basically he says that if we don't take care of our proffession then things will go sour for us. I tend to agree with that thinking more than simply "the industry is waning".

 

- "You need to be connected with the kinds of firms who need this sort of stuff" Definetly true, as with any service oriented proffesion. But the part where he said most do not need "this sort of stuff" may be true if you are counting every architect who works out of his basement. But if you mean architecture firms of 10 or more people. I would say that most do need and want "this sort of stuff".

 

- "Second, it involves extremely long nights at the computer" Sure, sometimes. As does anyone who works in architecture.

 

I will add this fair bit of warning: You have to be really good to be successfull. You could be fairly average architect and still make a decent living by writing specs or doing CA or several other things except design. But in illustration everyone sees just how good or how average you are.

[Ernest Burden III]

I take it your professor knows from experience? He has tried to make a living as a renderer? He's married to a renderer, his best friend is a renderer?

 

I would say he's fulla crap. The previous posts are right, but the funny part was suggesting you would earn more as a draftsman in an architectural office. Does he have any idea what that job pays? It ain't much. Does he know that most of the people in rendering left those jobs?

 

In lean years it can be hard to earn 50 cents as a renderer, but does anyone still believe that an architect boss will keep you on in a lean year? Loyalty in architecture? Not that I've noticed.

 

Rendering can be difficult, and is not for everyone, but do not let yourself be talked out of doing what you (may) want to do so easily. Ask questions here. With all due respect, I don't think your professor knows what he's talking about.

 

And let's not forget that there are some fat years, once and again.

[alexg]

Well, looking at the numbers of artists jumping into 3d, it might be true that cg artist's growth soon will overwhelm the market, meaning just as David Wright's writing. But, do remember that we are servicing to the building industry for more than 2 billion people. As long as there are architects, there will always be job for cg, especially if you are good at it.

 

The main concern might be in the next 5 years, 3d softwares might be artificially intelligent and so easy to use, architects can just do what the usually do in cad 2d, press a button called 'photorealistic radiosity' or 'npr' and whoala...... a fully rendered 3d came up. That will reduce the need of cg illustrator dramatically.

 

If you are studying in Interior, I would really suggest that you use Max and Cad to really support and improve your design. That way you will be standing on both grounds (design and cg) and will be able to combine both.

We are doing our own architecture design projects as well as being cg artist for other fellow architects, and that really works well.

CG pays quite well, but a design project when is through, pays minimum 10x more than CG.

 

BTW, still have long hours, though. That part will never get away (in design and in cg), especially if you have clients who just love tight deadlines.

[alexg]

.....Loyalty in architecture? Not that I've noticed.

 

 

Bravo Ernest! You got that right, mate!

Been working in arch firm, and been dumped on hard times! No loyalty for staff in Arch firms. Once income gets low, staff get sacked!

[dwright]

Keep in mind that Architects are not "the" clients, not really... developers, add-agencies and marketing media companies are the real profitable clients, in other words, "Everything that is Sales and Marketing related". Architectural offices with rendering services will never understand property marketing nor sales.

 

These two worlds are very different and they never really connect; they are incompatible. Developers hardly ever assign a marketing contract to architectural firm, even when a firm may have internal rendering services. Clearly many of us deal with architects for contracts, but in the long run, there is much more in the other field and it much more fun.

 

Cheers,

 

David

[Ernest Burden III]

David makes a very important point (nothing unusual about that): architects that produce their own renderings typically do so in order to explain what they have designed, not to help their client market the project. The better a design firm is at documenting and demonstrating their work the less they need rely on renderings. But the developer/client needs to sell the project to the public, to backers, buyers and government bodies. They have a need for good quality renderings well beyond those that simply illustrate the architects 'vision'.

 

Architects that try to serve too many purposes run the risk of tripping over their own dancing feet. The same applies to renderers.

[Jorbu]

Here's my 2 cents....

I currently live in the Seattle, WA area and work for an architecture firm where we do our own 3D work. I come from an architecture background and have geared towards CG more and more. I have to say that your professor is somewhat 'behind the times' for sure. I can see some valid points in his advice, however, I think they are biased to they way we works.

I do have to say that this city got hit really hard by the recent economic recession and it's only slightly beginning to emerge...very slowly. Because of this lack of new construction and new buildings I can see the market here for architecture illustrations has been somewhat slow. As recent as a couple of months back there's been news of a few architecture firms filing for bankruptcy. Nonetheless, I have provided freelance services for some offices and the reason they choose to hire me was quality.

Most often, architects don't want their staff to spend too much time doing 3D in-house becasue they don't always bill the hours to their clients and rather have them doing real 'billable' time. This in turns makes the rendering they produce very low quality. I'm not the best by any means, and I'm still learning a lot (thanks to CGarchitect and everyone here), but the majority of the illustrations I see are pretty bad.

 

aleg....sorry to hear that you have had bad experiences with arch firms in the past. I feel very lucky to work for a firm that for the past year has fallend on hard times and very low funds and none of the employees have been let go. My boss has said that "he won't lay anyone off", and from what we have gone through in the past year, I believe him.

 

(Tom- check your private e-mail.)

[alexg]

Jorbu, you're a lucky one.

 

David, that is true, arch firms don't really have the money, unless the developer assign those architects to find suitable cg artist for the building. That's what happened in Oz.

 

Anyway, stick to the developers, and if you are a licensed architect, who knows, sometimes you will get your hands on some project as well as nice cg. Nice bonus.

[JHalton]

I try and stick with developers when poss, Architects scare me sometimes. They become very emotionally attached with their projects making it difficult sometimes.

 

As an example, a monster was created.

 

I was working with the developer on an project with a given deadline, this was a project before planning and I ended up chasing the architect as he did changes to his creation, I did them, showed him via email he'd make more and more and it never stopped. I was asking him politely if he could foresee an end to the changes and he said, well not really, I have a planning meeting pending so I need you to be at the same stage as I am all the way through, you could say I 'closed the blinds' ,I mean these were major ball ache changes, heh, but there you go. You can have difficult times in any career so I tend to keep smiling and learn from experiences and would'nt change it for the world because I am in a very rewarding career!

 

I'd like the pleasure of been able to choose away from projects before planning but we dont live in that kind of world unfortunatly. !

 

Anyways. Off to make some more changes.