Alfonso Lee Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Hi All, Back in 1995 I came across an article in CGW included a chart showing around like only 10% in the overall CG animation market was Architectural flythrough/animation..... is it still the case or does anyone have some update reference about it? Regards, Alfonso Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 I do about 50 -80 commissions for still images each year which is 200 - 320 in the last 4 years. In that time I have been asked to do an animation about 4 times. ( I don't actually do animations, but people assume I do). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexg Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Almost the same number here, Dibbers. In the last 4 yrs we have done only 4 animations. Only less than 1% of all work done. We have got a lot of request, though, but most just back off after seeing the quote. Most (architecture) client still think producing animation is just so easy, a by-product of doing stills. Which might not be the case as in the other CG industry. Getting a 10% will be a spectacular achievement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cullen Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 We have got a lot of request, though, but most just back off after seeing the quote.Thats the same thing that happens to us. We do about 30 stills a month and are always asked to do animations of the site. when we give them the quote they always get this blank look on their face. :???: I would real like to see a lot more animation out there though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Working as a one-man office, I have done two animations this past year. But I do not do anywhere NEAR 50 projects a years. Some of you must drive a much nicer car than I do! client still think producing animation is just so easy, a by-product of doing stills.In some cases that is exactly what it is. The last one I did, which is the best one I've ever done, was an add-on item to an order for 10 renderings. The client never asked for it, I put a fee to do the animation in my proposal. Towards the end of the job they just said "OK, why not do the animation". They had already paid me to build all the models, lighting, textures, etc. It WAS just a matter of programming camera passes and handing frame sequences to two idle computers. Once all was rendered, there was a few hours in Photoshop and Premiere to assemble the film. I had about 25 camera shots. So the work to produce the animation as a byproduct of the stills job was about two days. The fee was enough to cover that and more, so it was very profitable for me and very inexpensive for the client. If they had come to me for the animation only it would have cost about what they had paid for renderings. Its the same process in many ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Denby Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 But I do not do anywhere NEAR 50 projects a years. Some of you must drive a much nicer car than I do! I meant 50 -80 images rather than projects. (still many though). I work on producing one fully detailed image per week, and a few conceptual sketches thrown in. Animations serve a particular purpose, but they just don't 'rock my boat', so I'm glad to hear they're not dominating the Architectural CG indutsry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 in our firm i probably work on average about 20 jobs a year (say 2 per month or so) and maybe produce 100+ official images from them. out of which i'll produce maybe 2 anims a year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 I work on producing one fully detailed image per week, and a few conceptual sketches thrown in. Animations serve a particular purpose, but they just don't 'rock my boat'Your work is top-notch quality so I hope you are charging accordingly--and can tell me how the Aston Martin Vanquish drives! (I'm kidding about the car). Animation is where I want to take my career. Having done regular renderings for over 20 years I am desperate for ways to re-energize my work. Going 100% digital, which I did at the end of last year, is one, pushing for animation work is another. Making a lot more money considering how hard I work wouldn't hurt, either. But I'm not a very good businessman, so I doubt that one is realistic. I think the high cost of animation is what has kept it at such a low percentage of renderers' work. I also think it will come into increasing demand in the next few years as a result of expectations by those that renderings are targeted at to see more information. In other words, that people will simply come to expect to see animation when an architectural project is presented. If that is true, it will drive demand for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 I usually do about 60 - 80 stills a year an usually about 20 animations. Unfortunatley most of the animations we do are done in order to get jobs so they are done for free. Out of those 20 animations we were paied for 2 or 3 of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigcahunak Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Hey, that would be very interesting, if anyone could find a more recent article. BTW: I think that 10% for architecture is very high, but it also depends what they calced in there and how they got the info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexg Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Well, I think that's how the chart says Arch-Viz gets 10% of the market. Maybe they count all the animations project done, not eliminating the 'unpaid' ones. :winkgrin: As for the car, Ernest, haven't got one, still building the 3d ones first :ebiggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfonso Lee Posted February 12, 2004 Author Share Posted February 12, 2004 It WAS just a matter of programming camera passes and handing frame sequences to two idle computers. Once all was rendered, there was a few hours in Photoshop and Premiere to assemble the film. I had about 25 camera shots. So the work to produce the animation as a byproduct of the stills job was about two days.As much as the multimedia presentation invasion is concerned, the traditional Architectural walkthrough/fly-by around the lifeless space is on its way transforming, from a somewhat design/documentary footage to become a commercialized trailer. As such, subjected to the clients expectation, it hardly a one or two men work. Alfonso Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 My largest project this year included about 30 or so animations. Granted, they were all individual rooms, in 3 condos, but still a lot of animation. They were for an interactive presentation to market the condos, all to be put on a website. Unfortunately, the project was cancelled at about 90% (yeah, I lost a decent portion of the fees - a painful lesson). I believe that this will be an increasing area of arch viz. This basically saved the developer the cost of constructing a real model to show and allowed him to market well before any construction had been completed. As more developers realize the cost benefits and the web speeds increase, I think you'll see more and more like this. I hope so, it makes it much more interesting to do, not to mention more work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris_A Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Developers and the like (the people who stand to make or lose the most money) seem to be the ones who make the most use of animations. The Designers and Architects are typically working on very lean margins here in the US and change things all too often to make them an efficient part of the process. Nothing like creating an anim early on that's useless after the design changes in the next weeks client meeting. One key to greater use of animations may be to explore styles that convince people these animations can have a look other than the photo-real presentation seen so much in the 'still' market. From a design standpoint, NPR techniques, massing animations, even simple daylight studies can do wonders for project understanding without so much effort. EB, was the animation project you describe one of you NPR projects? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Originally posted by mbr: ...Unfortunately, the project was cancelled at about 90% (yeah, I lost a decent portion of the fees - a painful lesson)... Didn't you write a kill fee clause into your contract? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erleo Posted February 13, 2004 Share Posted February 13, 2004 Originally posted by mbr: Unfortunately, the project was cancelled at about 90% (yeah, I lost a decent portion of the fees - a painful lesson). Oh that's too bad.. all the hefty work and it gets cancelled out at the last minute. :ngeupset: That's one problem on animation.. You get stuck with it for weeks, even months for some really gigantic work. What I usually do propose on my contract is to have the agreed total amount for the animation equally divided into the number of weeks til the projected deadline. In such case, i get paid every week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted February 13, 2004 Share Posted February 13, 2004 EB, was the animation project you describe one of you NPR projects? Yes, it was. Generally speaking, that's what I do. It was a less extreme application of NPR. I got my final check cleared into the bank today, so I am not so worried about having to keep it under wraps. Here is a frame I posted in another thread: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 geez Ernest, you illustrate some pretty ghastly looking interiors...How do you keep a straight face in meetings What can I say besides no-one cares what I think of the design--they just hire me to draw it. It is also worth noting that the clients doing all these ghastly interiors WERE hired to design them. And the firm that designed this interior (posted above) is considered one of the BEST restaurant designers in NY, if not the USA. They did not do the gold trees, however. That restaurant will be opening very soon, I want to go buy a drink at the bar just to check it out. The other one that I have posted in the past with people added (with the glass box bar station) will also open soon. The designer said to me yesterday "it looks just like your renderings". So I did my job. I'll go buy a drink, since people like us cannot afford to EAT in these places. By the way, the one posted in this thread is actually a ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kid Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 geez Ernest, you illustrate some pretty ghastly looking interiors. I still can't get over that restaurant with gold plated trees growing across the ceiling. How do you keep a straight face in meetings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbr Posted February 14, 2004 Share Posted February 14, 2004 Kid - no, no kill fee, but it wouldn't have made a difference. My guy matter of factly said 'if I don't want to pay you I won't - contracts are worthless'. Yeah, that was great, and after discussing things with a lawyer, that is essentially true. I am in the right, of course, but his 'company' has no tangible assets (it was formed for the development), making my problem the last one anyone will consider. I got paid for what was completed as it was done, so I didn't work much beyond what I was getting paid for. Unfortunately, I assumed he would continue to pay and worked on more than I should have just to get things done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted February 15, 2004 Share Posted February 15, 2004 Wow, interesting thread. Over the past several years, I have completed many architectural animations but only a couple renderings (with no animation contract). I find it interesting that most of you are just the opposite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dp Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 hello all just sticking my head up out of the trench we (the royal we ie me and a coule of sub-cons)found that from the start of last year we went to a 60/40 split on animations with 60 being stills and this year todate it's been the other way round with animations taking the lead...... with dvd based presentations now becoming the norm however i'm currently rendering some of the largest images for print i've bever done at 12000x3000 one thing is still the same however......developers love or hate em can't put food on the table without them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfonso Lee Posted February 16, 2004 Author Share Posted February 16, 2004 Tony, Alfonso, did I read that right? $130.00 US per minute?Sorry, correction here: it should be US$130/second. Relief! Alfonso Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visions Posted February 16, 2004 Share Posted February 16, 2004 HI. i'd like to add my thoughts to this thread. we finished about a 100 or more still projects last calender year and 3 were animations. Through that year we quoted for around 25 animation projects and the only ones we got had a really bad fee structure. We normally charge around 50-60 USD a second and have difficulty getting that fee and settle around the 30-40 dollar range if the client is commited to the payment schedule. Still, its an uphill task convincing the clients of these rates, but the silver lining is that every one wants to do animations, so its just a matter of playing with the costs. rgds vivek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfonso Lee Posted February 16, 2004 Author Share Posted February 16, 2004 So far our stills remained about 6-7 times more than the animation while the animation is catching up these years. Animation contracts normally bundle with stills which make things justified in particular to large scale projects. Severe competition jeopardize the entire production quality and charges. A major trim down to US$130/min. or less without much fancy flavor (e.g. motion capture) is not rare. Alfonso Lee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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