3D Studio Structure

[Robert Strickland]

Hi Team 

We're a 3D Studio based in New Zealand called 3D Revolution looking after clients throughout Australia New Zealand's and the US.

I use the word loosely "3D Studio" as we are more the sales and marketing and project management part of the 3D Rendering studio and we outsource all our work offshore too designers throughout the world.

We are wanting too start recruiting our own internal designers modelers etc and really wanted too lock down the best way too manage the rendering process from modelling all the way through too rendering and creations of videos etc.

We're currently working on over 90 active projects, so we will always need our remote designers, but still want too build up our internal team.

What is the best break down of staff for a 3D studio i.e. project starts with the 3D modeler and from there should we have different people doing different elements ? Feedback and advice would be greatly appreciated 

 

[Jinmu Staddon]

Hi Robert. My impression has always been that archviz is mostly populated by generalists. I don't know what your projects are like, and maybe you're not just doing archviz, but I would start by hiring a seasoned 3D artist who can take a project from concept through completion all on their own. Then from there, hire a team for them to lead. I think most studios get started by one or a couple ambitious artists that start adding people once the workload gets too heavy for them to handle on their own (rather than turning down projects). Seems like you could approach it this way since you can always rely on your remote artists to pinch hit if your lone in-house artist gets overwhelmed with a project. Theoretically, that first senior person you hire would be able to advise you on building your tech infrastructure once they understand your business as well.

That seems like a natural way to approach it to me, but I've never started a studio before. I'm sure there are people on cgarchitect who can speak more from actual experience of starting their own company.

[Anatoli Deriouguine]

From my experience of running our entirely remote archviz agency nofuss I'd like to second what Jinmu has said above.

We do not have a centralized office for all the artists in our team because we don't feel that we need it. However, over the years we've been active, for most of the freelancers working with us we have become an exclusive source of projects. All our artists are very capable generalists who are able to take most visualization jobs from A to Z on their own, but can also share the workloads whenever they get too busy.

Before the pandemic I also wanted to assemble a core squad in a single office space, but now I see it as more of a disadvantage because for us there actually isn't much of a difference if we work together or not. In fact, I find that our remotely distributed structure turned out to be more flexible and stress resistant in the current situation.

What is your main reason for wanting to recruit internally?

[Francisco Penaloza]

@Robert Strickland
To your question, you need to get an senior artist, or creative director. a person on that level who could manage the projects you have now and grow the team as need it. After COVID many companies are really putting in the table the option of totally remote workforce. Even my company, I manage many projects at the time, I have a few helpers and everything remote, it works fine. But we are a established Architectural company for many years. With only remote working it may create  an identity issue, a 'traditional' company image that is very strong in many cases, so I don't see only remote virtual company, that nobody know where it operates.

Having a creative director can also help you to create a company image or style. I can image using only freelancers, maintaining a consistent quality and style output may be very hard, mostly if you are not aware of the details how a Visualization process works. 

Now this Creative director or manager, what ever name you want to give, could not necessary be in your same building, but it should have  a consistent communication with your sales team and managements so everyone understand the capacity and quality output that you guys can produce. You can get one creative Director and then a couple Sr Visualization person to manage all your projects, then you can see how much each person can manage and overall usage of regular Viz person resources. You need to start funneling up the hierarchy to create and maintain a company image, which will differentiate you from any other similar company, that also will bring you more clients and focus your resources to what you guys do best.

Thinking on hiring one modeler, one texture artist, one post artist, is not looking at the big picture, if you guys have managed to have 90 projects running now, you need to look the big picture and think how to sustain that and how to grow it. As you describe now it sound like a jungle, but hey if it is working for you, Great!!.