State of ArchViz industry in N. America

[warwickmassey]

I'm curious if anyone can tell me the state of the ArchViz industry in N. America. Through the network on Behance I have found Eastern Europe seems to be a hotbed for the industry. North America not so much.

 

It seems to me that most of the CG artists doing work in visualization are from Eastern Europe. Their work is usually world class and they seem to freelance more than artists out here.

 

I know here in Vancouver that the VFX and animation industry thrive. We have good Viz work, however, I don't feel it is the same quality as the work you see coming out of Europe or even Australia. I could be wrong and this could be a major generalization. Has anyone else observed this trend?

[Sho-Time1]

Very accurate observation. There are a few larger companies here in USA/North America and I've also found that some of the smaller firms out source to European countries. We're definitely behind overall when it comes to the level of quality that is being achieved in other countries.

 

I was lucky enough to become the first employee of a guy who started a company here in Ohio. As the quality of our imagery has gone up so has the amount of businesses we've been able to generate. Saying that to say that as long as you can produce then I believe there is a Market for it...The tricky part is gauging the amount of money people are willing to pay.

[Nic H]

USA is a bit behind and generally very conservative (blue shirt, beige pants, white dad trainers) when it comes to domestic arch viz (and architecture) but is catching up rapidly. There are a handful of established studios (Neoscape, DBOX, SteelBlue) on both coasts that do great work, beyond that I'm not aware of any good smaller studios akin to The Boundary (UK) and Mr P (AU)

 

The US market is quite appealing internationally 1) due to the amount of quality building work going on in the major cities 2) the relatively high prices of arch vis services and 3) the lower quality and slow work that gets done.

 

My perception is that the EE artists you speak of are predominately men with evermotion model sets and folios full of white warehouses with a foreground furry blanket and twee paintings but devoid of architectural knowledge, which i believe is key for arch vis. Good artists - in my experience are distributed evenly across the world and there is a real lack of them at the higher level and no set schools or steady stream of graduates. To be honest 90% of work is indistinguishable from each other these days, the technical standard has been set and its no longer a real talking point, nor should it be. Relationships and original ideas will hopefully prevail and more of a focus on message rather than medium, not that you can tell this from the majority or so called artists being borderline obsessed with vray settings at the expense of making generic work.

 

As an aside VFX artists make terrible arch vis artists. They are inflexible, overpaid, no architecture knowledge and used to working on giant pipelines where they only do one specific task. The best artists I know are multi skilled and know how to construct an image from *cradle to grave*

Edited June 27, 2016 by nicnic

[beestee]

How is the metric of quality of a rendering quantified? Easy to compare at face value but is there more to consider?

 

I did a live design session with a client last week using a GPU renderer and about 30 modular model elements that came from Revit, AutoCAD and 3dsMax. Pretty impressive for anyone involved in the session, despite the renderings on their own and out of context not being nearly as impressive as a set of stills with days/weeks of look development.

 

I strongly believe the visualization industry is evolving towards interactive, and this will only become more pronounced as VR/AR and realtime tools become more accessible.

[warwickmassey]

Great insight guys. I agree beestee, I see interactive presentations taking center stage very soon. As with anything, the quality will follow.

 

I suppose a distinction should be made for interiors vs exteriors. I am speaking of interiors specifically. It does seem a lot of the interior work (from EE) is created by Viz artists with strong interior design backgrounds. They also tend to have a great eye for real world photography. Sure the models are third party, but when combined tastefully you get a very impressive rendering that speaks to viewers. Here in NA I see a lot of poor compositions, unrealistic lighting and shaders.

 

Nicnic, you are right, the artist with very little architectural knowledge may not be able to "explore" the space for the viewer.

 

I realize I am speaking in a very general sense of course. Thanks for the feedback

[RyderSK]

(blue shirt, beige pants, white dad trainers)

 

I only logged to like this.

[heni30]

Actually it's one of the strategies that high IQ, successful people use according to some replies on Quora.

 

Wear a uniform - have 10 blue shirts and 10 beige pants - frees your mind to do creative things. Who can argue with Zuckerberg's t-shirt?

[RyderSK]

I am not sure if Steve Ballmer could be described as "High IQ" but he fits your successful bin.