Didn't have a clue till today that while you push pull you can add a face by hitting "ctrl" on a pc or "option" on a Mac

@foxcore

For this project I use Lumion. For a few reasons.
(I'm not here to sell Lumion so please don't start with the “too expensive” diatribes).

People have distain for Lumion because of it's price but they miss a very valid point. The Lumion licence never looses it's value. It is like a little investment. When you are done you basically give it back to the community and get a refund. You can resell your own licence/key if you want anytime right on the Lumion Forum.

Secondly there is no rendering overhead at all....the render times on those shots was between 4 and 6 second.....lol....and that is stretching it. Basically I am selling modeling cause the rendering is free.

Lumion loves Collada files and so does Sketchup. You can throw just about any image at it via .dae and it returns a good render. Set-up time for those buildings is also measured in seconds not minutes or hours.

Lumion is the easiest rendering front-end you can buy. It takes no experience. (although the more you have the better your Lumion images will look just like all the other rendering machines. So if you are an artist you have the freedom to create some amazing images...If you don't believe that go look at the forum postings.

Enough!!

You said you are using twilight. That's smart. Twilight is very friendly as well and so it is a good place to start your rendering career because you can get some good results with it the first day. I think that you might even be able to use Twilight for a project like mine. It will not render as fast as Lumion but it is slick to set up and relatively fast.

I see a lot of good basic qualities in your renders. You need more detailed models, better constructed and mapped materials and more entourage..lol...(but so do all of us). You are on the right track you just need more time and practice.

I am working on a tutorial in which I sample the current brick from a heritage building and turn it into a tiling image with normal map. I feel like I have made a million wood textures so I may do a wood tutorial as well. I modeled wood textures for a building materials company for 3 years, you name it (including things like “quarter sawn oak”) I made it. I'm sorry, this is a promise for now to get them completed.

@pbacot. Thanks!

The facade on Hamilton House i.e. the front veranda is the heritage design. I research the old photos and try to bring back the old surfaces depending on the owners request. The brick color is the original color as well.

@JQL

I create a few shots during the first iteration and the architect picks the 1 or 2 shots he likes and we continue the iterations using his choice.

No interiors (that is another separate project)

“I would charge 350”
I think that is about 600 Canadian. You could be right.
I would have to ask you at this point to post an image that you feel is worth 600 Canadian.
That way I know if we are in the ballpark.

Sometimes a quote gives away a persons ability...i.e. Solo might quote 50 bucks on a job because it is something he can do in seconds...the next guy quotes the same job at 200 dollars because it takes him 400% longer to complete the job so he feels he should get his rate.....to bad he will never see it.

“if they pay 25 images up front.”
Frankly I would feel insulted if you asked me as a customer for a retainer There is no need for it (unless you are litigating) unless you are short of money to buy food. It sets a tone of mistrust. Create an image...cut an invoive...simple. If you do a good and timely job you will get paid the same way.

“create better images than those” This is the quality that the customer asked for...no more...no less.
But based on your comment I would want to see an image from your recent work that is better, just to see what better means to you. ( but be careful...if you set my expectation with an image that takes you hours to complete, I will expect that level of quality for every shot. You might be digging a rather large hole for yourself.

Cheers!

Solo you are welcome to join in anytime. As JQL hinted, I think it might bore you to death.
I could actually use the help. Believe it or not I have 4 horses...Savana, Sky, Bell, and a big, old 8 year old race horse called Bee. Last week I made a mistake and fell of Savana breaking two of my ribs. I am glad I sit while I work but the pain has been a bit overwhelming at times. ......lets talk tomorrow...I got to go take an aspirin...
cheers!

@unknownuser said:

mostly high quality photos

That's how it starts but if you look close you will see a lot of texturing. Often the building owners want it to look like the original heritage site so I take samples from the photos and make textures. Either with algorithmic substance tools or PS or both. If brick is painted for example I peel back the paint. I use SU "make unique texture" often as well to paint in changes to the surfaces..i.e. many buildings have murals and I need to deliver the detail so I have to paint it in. Depending on the design I have the option of building mesh and materials or simply painting images.

You can see the evolution from paint to design suggestions in this sequence.

Foxcore you have asked some questions that I am going to answer tomorrow.
JQL you have made some interesting observations and suggestions and I am going to comment on them all as well but I have to go back to work.

Cheers!...tomorrow!

If you wish you can give advise on pricing this.
The question is what is the price per unit in this project.

I do an average of 40 to 50 retail storefronts per season. The link is a set of examples of the types of fronts that are remodeled. Basically I build the downtown area completely. The architects have a camera somewhat like the google street-view machine except higher resolution. They take the shots so there is no travel involved. I build the existing structures and map the high-rez images to them. Once they are built I render shots as you see for each location and they are sent to the architect for redesign. We simply use pdfs to do markups. There may be one or two iterations depending on how complex the renovations are. I currently have a backlog of approx. 50 units to complete.

My price is very low but that is because I have been doing this for a long time and these models are easy to knock off. If you would like to give your thoughts on a unit price please do. (anyone)

You are correct but it is a good way to keep myself grounded. When ever I get close to thinking I am an artist I am struck down by some piece of brilliant work I find here or somewhere else in the community...and then another...and then another. It is a good reminder to me to put more effort into my work. With hard work I can emulate an artist from time to time.

Now if only someone would give us a little insight on job pricing.

Shove it solo!......

JQL...you seem like a very compassionate and committed artist. I like the way you put your family first....bravo!

"Balls" just for answering the question....guys like solo, who has joined the lurk here wouldn't share a peck of his "how do I price this" info. Is it because he doesn't know how to price a job?

I'm not an artist I am a modeller. As much as I would like to be an artist I am simply not. I would suggest that someone like solo is an artist (although he rates himself as moderately good at Sketchup...(sure solo! we know better) Solo has easily shown us over the years that he has intrinsic value. I think that is what you are talking about JQL.

So for me it is easy...I work by the hour, on anything, everybody gets the same rate, I have no intrinsic value. That works for me. I am very rarely without work. Sometimes the work can be tedious but I am out of the cold and happy.

@unknownuser said:

Lol. I'm glad to see someone approaching this topic with a bit of humor.

It's necessary although often misunderstood. It is pretty dry around here most of the time. I try to get hair to stand up on some people...and often it does. Although the big IGNORE has been the most popular response lately.

@unknownuser said:

Then that should have a standard price and you're in direct competition with people that do similar stuff. You just have to find them and know what's the price they charge. I've no experience to share on that.

I'm just shaking my head.. ..sorry, It is nice to see that at least someone has the balls to give it a try....cheers to you!

Buy the way foxcore, I have forgotten that there is this coven of "Premier Members" in the background talking it up. Because it is so sensitive a subject, joining them should get you more help. That will give you the option of playing with us guys in the fish bowl later if you feel like hanging around with the peons.

This place is pretty strange some times....
[quote][/Really? It's very clearly spelled out in the first post of the thread.[quote]

Sure ...clear as mud....They are asking for a "download" button....not a colored product dissertation on one page. The fact is the layout of those pages is a font/color/sizing/css mess.

@unknownuser said:

Thanks to all who answered!

I remember clearly how difficult it was to get into this business in my area. I was always grasping for ways to justify my charges. I also remember your question being asked many times and in each case no one really provided any guidance. Not sure why people in this business clam up when you mention money...must be some sort of insecurity we have.

Anyway don't feel disappointed. No one has every been able to broach this subject here and get any real meaningful answers. I'd be happy to help you price jobs in the future.

Well that's a choice we make. I have never bought a new computer (or car) in my life. The last box I retired was 9 years old it had a Gforce-260..lol...never so much as burped in 9 years. I guess we shall see and in the mean time I am using a 780 and for GPU rendering it is mind-boggling fast.

You can save up and buy yourself a titan black for $2700.00 USD...lol...or you can buy a used 780 for 200 bucks. For a days pay you get to have a card with the performance of a titan black (PASSMARK). I do real time rendering. The 780 has quadrupled my speed. For me time is money. The card paid for itself in the first week.

@unknownuser said:

You want an exporter plugin

That's a start but it is when I get it to Unreal that the wheels fall off. It is just not a very friendly environment. Or it does not suffer fools like me easily. There are only one or two companies on earth now putting a user friendly, near real-time front end on their rendering/animation software. These companies are relatively small and so the cost of their software is high just to keep them alive. They are also biased engines and so that magical feeling of reality you get looking at raytraced images does not exactly happen. Close, but no cigar.

There is no one putting the same type of easy and intuitive front end on any ray-tracing algorithms. I love Thea (for example) but even Thea needs to make a simple set of default proceedures for all dummies to use. There is the argument that a full set of controls over any ray-tracing environment is complicated no matter what and not possible to bring to a lesser level of abstraction.

Needless to say, If you could put a friendly front end on Unreal4 you would own that space in the rendering marketplace.

@unknownuser said:

where?

I'm talking about a used card at that price obviously
I watched kijiji for about 3 weeks and was able to get one for 185.00
You will not find a 780ti for that price though. As it turns out the ti is kicking everybody's ass and so it is hard to find gently used ones. No one wants to trade them in.

Very difficult (or impossible) to match but who is it that can pay a developer/modeller for the time required to build it. How do you finance a clip like that?
What is the threshold gross cost of a project in which this would be practical? I am envious of the beauty but it seems to me this is art not architectural rendering.
Seriously, we are always looking for better solutions for rendering and animation. Is this really one of them. Seems way out of reach for the average Architect.

I really want to eat the mesh.

@unknownuser said:

GTX 980

Be aware that if you are going to assemble images for a video or animation that even a 980 will feel a little hobbled under the strain of an application like Lumion, Twin Motion, of other real time (like) rendering applications. A bargain at the moment is the geforce780 and 780ti both more robust and faster than the Titan family and cooler than the 980s. Yet you can buy a 780 for as little as 200 bucks.

@unknownuser said:

roof not meeting reality

....that makes sense. I have seen some builders debate roofs for days...

Here is as good a contractors formula as any.

Check the price of a good meal at your local burger shop....now multiply by 1.5......now multiply it times 7.5 hours (a days work) times 2, (for two days total).

In my case here in Ontario a burger meal is approx. 15 bucks so the formula is..

(151.5)(7.52)= $337.50 Canadian - If it is truly two days work

Just replace the cost of my burger with yours and of course convert from Canadian dollars.

Beware, there are many ways to skin this cat and there are a list of reasons. This is just a quick way of getting your price close across geographic regionsbecause it is different everywhere. I also take into consideration that you are a rookie. When you have completed 10,000 hours of modeling or better you will look back and understand what I mean....and you will still be confused about pricing.

Cheers!

Thanks Denis and alpro...I get it now....cheers!

Thanks Tig for your detail...that describes my situation somewhat. I was running SU8 on an SSD...so 8 was on
SU 8 became unusable (still not sure why) so I upgraded to pro15 but I didn't install it on C:. Instead I installed on the local hard drive which is now I was saving to a location on D as well not to the SSD so that's why I said "somewhat".
I don't think my configuration would fool SU unless I saved to D by accident (which is possible )...cheers! (I did get the file back so at the time Ely made me smile very large......cheers!