pitch project.. hope cilent will like it

[pailhead]

Every now and then a 10+ page thread appears where people bitch and moan about piracy, india, china, world conspiracies etc. My point is that it's pointless, and that everyone is pretty much contributing to it, even if it's in a very small way. No offense to Peter Guthrie, i consider him to be one of the top 3d arch viz artists, but i think that things like his blog contribute greatly to this state of affairs. Us helping eachother here on the forum, also does that, but in a far smaller scale due to the nature of this particular forum where you need to be legit to even access it - which in turn leads to somewhat loyal competition.

While i did learn a lot from other people on the forums and through tutorials, the situation has changed drastically compared to the early 2000s, the field has become super saturated, and it doesn't really make that much sense to be so generous, unless it's a closed community such as this one. I don't see a point of sharing your secrets. You don't even have to send someone overseas to train the cheap workforce that runs on a bowl of rice a day. All they need is internet, everything is already available on it.

I don't think i've seen a single realistic lawn in a rendering until PG posted his tutorial. Now, there are hundreds posted every day using the exact same technique. So if you go to evermotion, you'll find loads of really good renderings, coming from all these 3rd world places that you're bashing so much in this thread. Nothing personal, but most of them are way better than what i see here.

Icube guys used to post on evermotion, they used to post here back when they were "dva na kub" or something like that, but they never, EVER, shared any detail about any aspect of their work. Which i actually respect. For a long long while, i think they were the only ones that could produce very convincing, or at least eye pleasing greenery out of 3d elements.

Zuliban also never shared anything, and on one occasion when he did, i think he gave fake settings. What people did not know was that he took months to produce a set of images, which is totally unacceptable in a professional environment. But it raised the bar and gave homework to a lot of people. The thing is, they found ways to reproduce that quality and actually apply it in the field, but they probably valued all the time invested into learning that.

Once you serve everything on a silver platter, it loses value.

I don't hate anything in this world (and i've lived through a war) but i do hate evermotion. Doing arch viz and 3d graphics in general is fun, but evermotion ruined it for everyone except the people in india, and greedy developers/architects.

[glorybound]

We are all freaking out, but the digital camera didn't get rid of the photographers. I emailed my office a pencil sketch I did of my daughter. Everyone was amazed, and astonished, at this God given gift that they thought I had. Hog-wash! I practiced sketching, my whole life, and got good. I could teach them the basic rules of drawing in ten minutes, and if they practiced, they could do the same thing. Digital work isn't any different, except people don't appreciate digital art, as an art, as they should. Anyone who works in the industry appreciates good work, but other people, even the people who hire us, think we just press render. I personally think when companies start to buy software, hardware, and hire jockey's, they'll realize that it takes more than that.

One architect I do work for purchased 3DS MAX, Photoshop, a computer, and hired a cad tech to replace my services. The architect thought he could save a bunch of money if he could have his cad tech do his renderings, but he quickly found out that he was wrong. I have since completed several renders for him, and his cad tech is happy drawing plans.

I think our jobs are just as secure as the traditional illustrators jobs are. Have you ever seen the pencil sketches by Darrell Tank? Why would someone pay someone else thousands to draw a picture that looks just as real as a photo? If we can make people understand the time and skill it takes to do a good render, we'll be valued.

Okay... I am babbling! Hopefully I am making sense to someone

[glorybound]

Every now and then a 10+ page thread appears where people bitch and moan about piracy, india, china, world conspiracies etc. My point is that it's pointless, and that everyone is pretty much contributing to it, even if it's in a very small way. No offense to Peter Guthrie, i consider him to be one of the top 3d arch viz artists, but i think that things like his blog contribute greatly to this state of affairs. Us helping eachother here on the forum, also does that, but in a far smaller scale due to the nature of this particular forum where you need to be legit to even access it - which in turn leads to somewhat loyal competition.

While i did learn a lot from other people on the forums and through tutorials, the situation has changed drastically compared to the early 2000s, the field has become super saturated, and it doesn't really make that much sense to be so generous, unless it's a closed community such as this one. I don't see a point of sharing your secrets.

SO basically, the internet killed us. I was in I.T. for many years, and managed a large architectural firm in Chicago. I spent day-and-night troubleshooting things that are now a Google search away. Today, almost anyone, can manage I.T.

[pailhead]

We are all freaking out, but the digital camera didn't get rid of the photographers. I emailed my office a pencil sketch I did of my daughter. Everyone was amazed, and astonished, at this God given gift that they thought I had. Hog-wash! I practiced sketching, my whole life, and got good. I could teach them the basic rules of drawing in ten minutes, and if they practiced, they could do the same thing. Digital work isn't any different

Oh it's way different. I've had to pass a free-hand drawing exam in order to enroll into arch school. I've graduated since. I've been doing 3d for 10 years, but i can't sketch anything unless it's deconstructive architecture. This is not exactly something that you can learn, you can practice a lot and get better at it, but you need to be born with a talent. It's somewhat similar with 3d, since you do need to understand space. But then again it's much easier.

A 3d model of a building always goes towards one point - a perfect representation of what's been put into line drawings, or for that matter, even something that's in the architects head. It can be either right, or wrong, there is no 3rd outcome. It can be efficient or inefficient in terms of how many hours did it take one person to achieve the very same result. There are a few tricks as to knowing how to achieve something like a soft edge, will it be a chamfer, a fillet or vray-edge, but that can all be either learned or figured out, or just picked up on a forum like this. It doesnt take a whole lot of practice or intelligence to do it, unless people kept their secrets for themselves.

[pailhead]

SO basically, the internet killed us. I was in I.T. for many years, and managed a large architectural firm in Chicago. I spent day-and-night troubleshooting things that are now a Google search away. Today, almost anyone, can manage I.T.

Honestly, i wouldnt rely on google to solve something thats holding back $1000 an hour worth of architects in my office. But a rendering thats a fairly trivial matter, to which a 10 year old autocad rendering would suffice, i probably wouldnt care less about, the cheaper it's done, the better.

[pailhead]

I think our jobs are just as secure as the traditional illustrators jobs are.

Traiditional illustrators are old, and their jobs are secure only because piranesi still needs to evolve. In a few years, piranesi will be so awesome that youll be able to create illustrations as good as the real thing, if not faster, at least with a lot of flexibility. (I've no idea how traditional guys deal with design changes). Bye bye job security.

[lukx]

Every now and then a 10+ page thread appears where people bitch and moan about piracy, india, china, world conspiracies etc. My point is that it's pointless, and that everyone is pretty much contributing to it, even if it's in a very small way. No offense to Peter Guthrie, i consider him to be one of the top 3d arch viz artists, but i think that things like his blog contribute greatly to this state of affairs. Us helping eachother here on the forum, also does that, but in a far smaller scale due to the nature of this particular forum where you need to be legit to even access it - which in turn leads to somewhat loyal competition.

While i did learn a lot from other people on the forums and through tutorials, the situation has changed drastically compared to the early 2000s, the field has become super saturated, and it doesn't really make that much sense to be so generous, unless it's a closed community such as this one. I don't see a point of sharing your secrets. You don't even have to send someone overseas to train the cheap workforce that runs on a bowl of rice a day. All they need is internet, everything is already available on it.

I don't think i've seen a single realistic lawn in a rendering until PG posted his tutorial. Now, there are hundreds posted every day using the exact same technique. So if you go to evermotion, you'll find loads of really good renderings, coming from all these 3rd world places that you're bashing so much in this thread. Nothing personal, but most of them are way better than what i see here.

Icube guys used to post on evermotion, they used to post here back when they were "dva na kub" or something like that, but they never, EVER, shared any detail about any aspect of their work. Which i actually respect. For a long long while, i think they were the only ones that could produce very convincing, or at least eye pleasing greenery out of 3d elements.

Zuliban also never shared anything, and on one occasion when he did, i think he gave fake settings. What people did not know was that he took months to produce a set of images, which is totally unacceptable in a professional environment. But it raised the bar and gave homework to a lot of people. The thing is, they found ways to reproduce that quality and actually apply it in the field, but they probably valued all the time invested into learning that.

Once you serve everything on a silver platter, it loses value.

I don't hate anything in this world (and i've lived through a war) but i do hate evermotion. Doing arch viz and 3d graphics in general is fun, but evermotion ruined it for everyone except the people in india, and greedy developers/architects.

With this way of thinking I would say that it's not only evermotion... it's gnomon, 3dtotal, cgarena and list can go on.
But it's not with 3d that everyone shares his knowledge.
You can find videos how to build bombs, lasers, all crazy stuff with simple tools in your home.
But it's true that probably because of that any kind of work is getting lower and lower value. Cause whatever you do someone can tell you that he saw it on youtube and can also do that

I guess this is the world we live in and maybe the next step is to remove money totally finally and there will be one less reason for wars.

[pailhead]

You can't make a digital laser or a digital bomb. You actually need to go out and buy parts, or ingredients or whatever. Money changes hands, and makes the world go around. You'll never be able to undercut the large manufacturers of bombs, or lasers or whatever, unless you start becoming one yourself.

Gnomon teaches you. You still need to spend some time in a chair in front of the computer, you need to eat, you need to think, you arent spending any money anyway, since you downloaded it off a torrent.

Evermotion is far worse, everything is already there, simplified, you really need to know just the basics.

[glorybound]

Traiditional illustrators are old, and their jobs are secure only because piranesi still needs to evolve. In a few years, piranesi will be so awesome that youll be able to create illustrations as good as the real thing, if not faster, at least with a lot of flexibility. (I've no idea how traditional guys deal with design changes). Bye bye job security.

originals are always more valuable than the copy. What's an original computer rendering? Hit print, and make 20 copies, and they are all originals. Who places a value on anything?

[glorybound]

It takes a passion, and a commitment, to be good at what you do. I was talking to someone yesterday and explained drawing. Drawing is about proportions, light, and shadow. If you lean, memorize the basics, and practice, you can master the art. I pulled my Rubix Cube, from my shelf, and started messing it up. I gave it to the person and asked them to solve it. They shrugged their shoulders and said, "no way". I gave them the cube, asked the to mess it up some more, and then I solved it within minutes. I shared with them the 6 moves, that you need to memorize, to master the cube. Once they memorize these 6 moves they could solve the cube, too. The practice part allows you to solve the cube faster.

How many 3DS MAX commands have you memorized? How about V-Ray, and PhotoShop, and After Effects..? You memorized, practiced, and got good. Someone can spin those cubes all day, and unless they learn the tricks, they are wasting their time. If someone wants to learn to draw, but they don't take the time to learn the basics, and put in the practice time, they will not be good. If you appreciate art, then you'll appreciate a well done rendering. If you don't appreciate art, than a sketch-up model might me good enough. When I get a call, for a rendering they need tomorrow, I know that they do not appreciate what I do.

I can go on, and on..., but I am babbling again!

[pailhead]

People fool themselves that this is art. It's a commercial product, it's not art. It has some common points with art, but it's based on economics, money, deadlines... I've said it a bunch of times i think that 95% of this product's consumers, need far less than what we consider the standard today. Architects here use sketchup renderings for marketings. Developers back home are required to post a perspective rendering of a building on every construction site. They just need to satisfy a form, they don't need art. Mostly the renderings they end up using are sideproducts of BIM software like archicad.

I'm absolutely positive that painters had way more work in the period ranging from early 14th century, up to the development of the camera. There were only a few things that you could nail to your wall. Now there are tons.


*edit*

The only art here is being good at communication and respecting your clients and deadlines.

[glorybound]

People fool themselves that this is art. It's a commercial product, it's not art. It has some common points with art, but it's based on economics, money, deadlines... I've said it a bunch of times i think that 95% of this product's consumers, need far less than what we consider the standard today. Architects here use sketchup renderings for marketings. Developers back home are required to post a perspective rendering of a building on every construction site. They just need to satisfy a form, they don't need art. Mostly the renderings they end up using are sideproducts of BIM software like archicad.

I'm absolutely positive that painters had way more work in the period ranging from early 14th century, up to the development of the camera. There were only a few things that you could nail to your wall. Now there are tons.


*edit*

The only art here is being good at communication and respecting your clients and deadlines.

I respectively disagree. What is art? If you want a 3d model, then go hire a cad tech. If you want to create a feeling, and or mood, hire an artist. If you want to create a feeling and a mood, and have the flexibility of change during the project iterations, hire a 3D computer artist.

[pailhead]

It's a really broad term. But i strongly believe that people would mostly likely opt to hire cad techs if us 3d arch illustrators did not market our products so good. As i've said, i think most of our clients dont need half of the stuff that we do. My experience is the more detailed and realistic a rendering is, the more they focus on absolutely irrelevant stuff, wasting everyone's time and money. As soon as they figure out that a 3d rendering is guaranteed with every new BIM project done in revit, 99% of us will be out of work.

[glorybound]

and loosely used, which might be part of the problem.

[KAKTUSDIGITAL]

It takes a passion, and a commitment, to be good at what you do. I was talking to someone yesterday and explained drawing. Drawing is about proportions, light, and shadow. If you lean, memorize the basics, and practice, you can master the art. I pulled my Rubix Cube, from my shelf, and started messing it up. I gave it to the person and ask....

Well said! you seem to be one that does 'get' it and see the true value behind what we do and what goes into it. As our industry gets more and more commercial and less about the 'art' I truly hope there will be clients left who appreciate the art behind the picture. I hope it will come, just like fashion - people love their mass produced stuff, but more and more people are looking at those small boutique stalls for something that stands out.