Thanks guys!
I market (really my entire VBE
career has been word of mouth) myself as a builder and fabricator with 25 years of on-site experience who taught himself Sketchup, et al.
Builders and contractors really appreciate having a builder on the other side of the VBE. That's why I call it a virtual build, because it is, in all seriousness, built by a builder as if he was building it on site. No automation, no parametric input, no glossing over details. I build every part of it. So, I find all the things that wouldn't be found until on site and causing delays. And I almost always have suggestions for solutions that end up being what happens. It helps that my go-to engineer loves the VBE and can work with it without needing a bunch of superfluous drawings. These guys finally have someone who thinks like they do, understands their world, and can produce drawings, models, and animations. I can be as addicting as heroin, I have been told, haha.
On the very complicated jobs, being able to design the timbers and hardware and then produce shop drawing for all the fabricators ensures that there are minimal installation unexpectedness. Over 50% of my work is on jobs out of state that I have never visited; and often, I will be feeding shops to companies in two or three different states.
After 8 years of this, I have a "family" of contractors and fabricators who use me for all their projects because I make their life better and less stressful, and, most importantly, everything works and fits when it hits site.
I just laugh when architects look at my VBE's and wish they looked prettier. They in no way understand that this is a tool and not just a pretty model to watch.
Jeff, I go back and forth with the black background. It makes things a little harder to see than if I went with white and edges, but I think the black, especially when I am using color-coded VBE's makes for a more dramatic effect. And since these animations are usually after-the-fact marketing products, more dramatic is better.
