By Ravenn (Rorrkonn) (66.190.141.64) on Sunday, December 22, 2002 - 05:19 am:

Just curious
if some one $$$ you as a modeler
is there a rule and a list somewhere with URL of what a model is worth.

for example a Price List

A Realistic Human is worth $500
A Human for games is worth $450

A Realistic Car is worth $500
A Car for Games is worth $450

along with everything else like,Houses,Boats, etc etc etc


Ravenn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

By Dustin D'Amour (Wizcraker) (68.99.218.128) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 12:59 am:

I think the most important thing is to ask your self. What is your time Worth?

Taking the consept of what bartenders have said that they make $100 a day. If a cater or person want a professional bartender for a private party for lets say 4 hours. Then the bartender will then say $25 and hour to meet what he makes usually through his/her normal job. So if the person says can they work for 1 more hour they get another $25 for a total of $125.

The same concept is for modelers. How much to you expect to get paid? How long does it take you to build that model? for a relistic human we can assume it would have hair, realistic textures. Are you selling it with clothes or is it naked? An upsell would be have the model priced in stages.

To keep it simple for this example lets say a basic loy poly relistic human without textures or hair or clothes sales for $200. Now if the client is looking for a certain cultural distinction [asian, african, etc...] so it takes you a little more time to model in those details, so you would add in the cost to that basic model. If the client wanted a relistic asian female that looks like a Shibuya Girl [Also known as the "Look at my new Prada bag" girls. Dyed hair, tiny voices, mini skirts and Namie-tans], and have 3 different wardrobes fully simulated, then you would adjust the price for this drastically, as something like this would probably be $1500+. I always assume that the body comes with one set of clothes even without having textures or hair. if they want it simulated for the correct fabrics and they want the hair, price goes up. the Upsell for characters is for females a full closet of clothes can be added from shoes, dresses, skirts, to different hair styles.

In the end it comes down to how much you expect to sale your services for, or how much do you want to make for a days worth of modeling that piece.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 02:37 am:

How much is a 'realistic human' painting worth? I doubt if anyone would ask such a question.

If the tool is a computer and not a brush it shouldn't mean there must be a fixed price.

That reminds me: nobody would point at a painting in an art gallery and proclaim that "this is a brush generated image."

By Jim Williams (Hiraghm) (65.70.121.97) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 02:06 pm:

I would

By Dustin D'Amour (Wizcraker) (68.99.218.128) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 02:43 pm:

depends on who painted it.

By Ravenn (Rorrkonn) (66.190.141.64) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 02:44 pm:

Do we charge $50 a hour or $500 a hour what do we charge a hour ?

By Ravenn (Rorrkonn) (66.190.141.64) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 02:49 pm:

How long would it take you all to make a human like in Poser.Modeled,Mapped,Rigged ?

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 02:51 pm:

" depends on who painted it."

That's what I mean. There's no standard rate for traditional artwork, why should there be one for 3D stuff?

By Lernie D Ang (Faulknermano) (210.14.11.101) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 09:15 pm:

because we're all hack, commercial artists.

juskiddin.

By Ravenn (Rorrkonn) (66.190.141.64) on Monday, December 23, 2002 - 09:33 pm:

We are not talken Art collecting for 500 AD We our talking 2003 3D Commercial Art.
Don't see how ya can compare them.
I really think there should be some kind of standard.
If one of us charge $10 and another charge $10,000 for a custom human then that's just screwed.

Ravenn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

By Emmanuel Henne (Emmanuel) (145.254.212.124) on Wednesday, December 25, 2002 - 11:02 am:

Beware,

very soon anyone will have to compete with low-wage "workers" from eastern european countries.
Just recently I saw some "agency" advertise that they can deliver a Henry-Ford-like pipelined production cycle (they really call it that way) with especially low prices for any modeling, texturing and animating task (especially for games) because they have russian artists who earn a fraction of the normal price (if You say 50 bucks an hour).

What happened to the traditional animation business has already headed towards "us", so 10 bucks an hour might NOT be ridiculous soon if You want to get work :/


Later,
Emmanuel

By Larry Shultz "SplineGod" (Larrys) (209.179.226.236) on Wednesday, December 25, 2002 - 05:51 pm:

I agree with you after a fashion I think much of the tedious part of the work will and is going out of the USA like much of the cel work did.
I think youll see more and more visual fx going out of the USA as well. What I dont see going overseas for awhile is the character based stuff.I see much of the character based work staying in the USA, Canada, UK and New Zealand simply because the cultures of those countries are more similar then dissimilar and they all speak the same language. Directing character CGI movies is alike directing a live action movie except in slow motion. A good animator has to know how to act and do so in a way that is recognizable to the target audience. Cel animation is pretty well locked down by the time it goes over seas. It then becomes a matter or physically creating the cels and so forth. The key poses have already been done and laid out. The colors are already chosen and locked down.
3D animation is very different. American audiences are used to particular types of humor and timing in acting. These are difficult things to get across. An american director has a difficult enough time directing american actors let along CGI actors where the director must wait days or weeks to see the results of this direction. Add on top of that the difficulty of dealing with cultural and language barriers. I dont see 3D character work leaving as quickly as other types of animation or CGI work.

By Hervé Steff (Hervé) (212.76.255.185) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 04:15 am:

hey, I would say, charge the max you can expect from your client...

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 05:22 am:

Yes, Larry's right. The other English speaking countries are lapping up the high-end work. I think it's because of language/price/high-standards. Some of these places are gaining a reputation for really high quality work.

The US dollar is still high compared to most other world currencies. This encourages things to move overseas. Personally I expect the US dollar bubble to pop in the near future, so that may bring more work back in again.

Emamanel said:
"Beware, very soon anyone will have to compete with low-wage "workers" from eastern european countries."

You are from Germany, but the majority of people in the Eastern European countries invited to join the EU don't speak German. I don't think there's anything to fear from them.

BMW had nothing to fear from the Trabant, you shouldn't worry about 3D artists from the east!

By Emmanuel Henne (Emmanuel) (62.104.211.64) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 06:02 am:

"You are from Germany, but the majority of people in the Eastern European countries invited to join the EU don't speak German. I don't think there's anything to fear from them.

BMW had nothing to fear from the Trabant, you shouldn't worry about 3D artists from the east! "

The problem is that the eastern artists are also BMWs, referring to Your metaphore ;)
They are really good, talented and aggressively looking for work, because they know that in germany the cost of living is hogh in comparison.
The language issue is not relevant at all, since most of the 3D artists from eastern europe speak either german or english, have relatives or business partners who do etc).
There is a significant amount of 3D work leaving germany towards the east because of the low wages,
in both animated film and games industry.
As Larry said, the main concepts are still locked down in germany, but thats a job for 5-10 people per production (layout, characters, colours, story), the rest (character modeling, setup, animation, compositing) leaves for the east.


Greets,
Emmanuel

By Karl Stocker (Pixeltek) (67.28.81.232) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 02:53 pm:

I agree with you Emmanuel. From what I've seen there is a real glut of talented artists in Eastern Europe, and moreover, with the relatively high level of unemployment there, I can easily see them organizing people into a modeling production pipline. Also, recently I read where the creators of a program, I believe it was a landscape generator (Worldbuilder springs to mind), had sent copies of that program to unemployed Russian scientists who put their considerable training and intellect to work and were in short time grinding out some spectacular stuff. I addition to having seen lots of 3d SW coding being done in those countries, I expect that we will hear a whole lot more of their involvement in providing a skilled workforce for modeling and animation in any popular SW package. Hey, those are the capitalistic ground rules we put forth. We can't complain if others abide by them. Then again, you can run around and tell prospective customers not to purchase models for less from Asian and Eastern European countries. That too is your right. As with much else, we keep control over what we are really good at. Creativity and imagination, i.e. talent, remain gifts that, short of genetic engineering, will continue to rule the day and command top prices in any circumstances.

By Ravenn (Rorrkonn) (66.190.141.64) on Thursday, December 26, 2002 - 03:13 pm:

Well If ya go to a store there is A lot of stuff is made in Taiwan,China.
That's not as much as if it where made in USA.
It's up to the buyer to decide what quality and price he wants to pay.

For most stuff anyways.
It just seemed the place to get a real world battle ready Medieval Sword would be England.
they said no Philippians make Swords.I haven't found a sword maken company in England,Europe,USA yet.
So if ya know of one let me know.

For 3D there our translators for emails and they even a phone translator now.

Even in English speaking countries there our Freebie 3D apps and Hobbyist 3Ders that will work for Low pay.

There is DAZ that sells Poser Models for a low price.wouldn't take much to get there models in to a HiEnd 3D app.

ya can go to turbo squad get humans from free to $900 have no idea why such a big price deference.
and if they say .lwo format but was made in another 3Dapp and just saved in a LW format they wouldn't work right.

There needs to be a LW Guild.
So ya know the models where made and work in LW.
So every one Charges the same price for the same quality models.
and no crappy missed up models aloud.

Ravenn
http://www.Atomic-3D.com

By Dustin D'Amour (Wizcraker) (68.99.218.128) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 04:05 am:

Marto swords are made in spain they make other stuff as well and are usually the ones that are licensed to make replicas. Their Swords are Real including the replicas [as Theatical swords have a much greater bend ratio to prevent damage during reinactment].

By Dustin D'Amour (Wizcraker) (68.99.218.128) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 04:06 am:

Marto swords are made in spain they make other stuff as well and are usually the ones that are licensed to make replicas. Their Swords are Real including the replicas [as Theatical swords have a much greater bend ratio to prevent damage during reinactment].

Check out Atlanta Cutlery Store in the USA

http://216.245.165.123/cgi-bin/www11651.storefront

By Emmanuel Henne (Emmanuel) (62.104.211.64) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 07:28 am:

What bothers me amongst others is that the 3D artist is degraded to a "3D operator" and "3D Worker".
That ad I saw at www.polyzoom.com says explicitly that they use a Henry-Ford-production-cycle where each worker is specialised on one thing and hands his finished part over to the next "worker" to provide low-cost, fast "assembly lines" for 3D artwork at low prices.
I really dunno what price they charge, but the whole thing has this touch of industrial production.
They might (and probably will or their profit) reuse those models for any other similiar need, so at the end, if this kind of business succeeds, a lot of things will look just the same.

I for one can not cope with prices as low as 10 bucks an hour, unfortunately, and while there never really was a "boom" time in germany for 3D work, this low-cost wave that comes now from east is a bit frustrating.
In the US, they probably had a time where You could charge good money for 3D work, but here, no one was even aware of 3D until they discovered that it can be had cheap, now
Anyway, got to find a work-around...


Later,
Emmanuel

By christophe.desse (Xtrm3d) (217.235.9.199) on Friday, December 27, 2002 - 06:52 pm:

hi emmanuel..
sadly you are 100 % right for the situation in germany.. i live in berlin..

but i found a solution :-) to not let all 3d work in the hand of easterner ...
i move to east
(hummm...well really far east )!!!!!!

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Saturday, December 28, 2002 - 05:52 am:

If there never was a time in Germany when you could charge high rates for 3D work, then you haven't lost anything if production houses set up in Eastern Europe.

There's no point being fearful of any one group of people from any particular region. In the computer information age there are no regions. Work can be farmed out to any part of the globe. You can do work for a client on the other side of the world if you put your mind to it.

The enlargement of Europe will ultimately benefit the European economy, which will result in more film and television productions, more advertisements, more games being sold, more 3D work!

By Emmanuel Henne (Emmanuel) (62.104.211.66) on Saturday, December 28, 2002 - 09:26 am:

Actually, Europe will go through a wave of unemployment and poverty, while a lot of people from poor countries will flood europe searching for low-paid jobs, adding to the substantial amount of jobless people from the former "rich" countries such as France, Germany etc.
The need for luxury goods such as films and games will drop to the bottom of a very deep pit and the unemployment will sweep through the ranks of the entertainment industry like a hot knife through butter.
We are already there, a lot of game companies have shut down here, others, specialising on low-budget lunchbreak games have risen and employ people from outside germany because their budgets are so tiny.

From a distant POV I can say that generally I find it is only fair that the former eastern countries get their share of beeing part of a bigger game now, because they can be cheap wage-wise and were poor under the former USSR regime.
From a personal POV, I fear that a lot of good artists with families and houses will loose their jobs because of that.
The irony is that our government spends money on funding companies that shift work to other countries.
Noz so funny over here, if You want to create good art and live of it.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Saturday, December 28, 2002 - 07:31 pm:

Often people who are not in favor of immigration describe the immigrants in terms of a natural disaster, such as "wave" or "flood". It is quite common language.

Similar fears were held by people when Germany was unified with the DDR (east Germany.) Although it was initially an economic strain, it has now enabled Germany to become the biggest and strongest country in Europe.

Things work both ways too. The EU has enabled Germans to work in the United Kingdom which has a much bigger media industry than Germany does.

By Emmanuel Henne (Emmanuel) (62.104.211.64) on Sunday, December 29, 2002 - 07:11 am:

"Similar fears were held by people when Germany was unified with the DDR (east Germany.) Although it was initially an economic strain, it has now enabled Germany to become the biggest and strongest country in Europe."

The biggest maybe, but the strength depends on a lot of different factors, and the facts that germany will not be able to fulfill the Maastricht criteria and has the highest unemployemnet rate since 5 years (approx. 6 million) plus ongoing cuts in its social system don't show my anything that would make say, yeah, germany is strong.
Add that to german students beeing amongst the last ones in europes eductaion ladder contest. and You will find that germany has problems.

BTW, no one feared the loss of his job due to the unification of germany, rather everybody feared the very high economical cost, and they were true.Most of germanies problems result in having to pay for nearly 20 million people's health and retirement who never paid a single penny into out social sytsem before 1990.Go figure.
Germany is not strong at all, and there are no signs it will get better anytime soon.


Later,
Emmanuel

By christophe.desse (Xtrm3d) (81.49.90.84) on Sunday, December 29, 2002 - 01:57 pm:

hi emmanuel,
j ai vue que tu m a mailler recament
mais comme je suis a paris en ce moment...je n ais pas acces a ma mailbox

en fait je pars a singapor...le 10 janvier
je te contact par mail enrentrant le 2 janvier
a+