do I suck so badly?!or this market will eat you alive if you're not SPECTACULAR!

[VI_MOVE]

Your work looks pretty good considering the amount of time you spent on it. On the other side you shouldn't worry too much about not getting this job. Also if there really was a job behind this "competition" the client seems really strange to me. Many times I had the experience that these kind of clients tend to change their opinion back and forth all the way through the project. At the end of the day you will have to work a lot more than expected. So better jump on the next one

[dlparisi]

"We found you price and speed good, but unfortunately the decisions fell on another artist based on the lighting and modeling quality."

Just because this was their response doesn't mean it's true. I can't see anything that would indicate the other artist had better lighting and modeling abilities, at least from these "sketches". It may have just com down to money too, the other guy may have been cheaper.

[prateekvishwa]

it is not necessary clients always speak truth.. i am sure tht guy must be doing it cheaper thn you! i have experienced this earlier.. no doubt your work is definitely better.. GL next time cheers!

[lukx]

Thanks guys! I appreciate your comments. I really started to think that I'm loosing my mind and going blind.

[MoonDoggie]

You're not losing your mind friend. Your quality is superior. No worries, it's the client legitimately this time and not you. I feel your pain man. Hats up, onto the next.

-Colin

[pskdude]

im getting more and more clients emailing me to have them help with the presentation material and they will compensate me at the end when they get the project. This sounded ok considering they were willing to pay a decent price for the renderings at the end. Turns out there are people scamming developers and running with the money after they get paid leaving the arch, lawyers and people like me behind with the tab. I no longer work without retainer. Period no exceptions. Like the guys previously said better of working on your portfolio....

[pixela]

Hi,
Your job is very good- please don't worry. The bad thing is that to have to prepare these almost for free like a competition.
I understand your situation about trying to find a job because I am totally in a similar siituation.
But I think such clients don't respect much the work we make, and unfortunately there are some artists who don't respect this too.
Well it can be because of they don't put much effort into their work, they use already-built downloaded scenes and models and DONE.
So they can offer silly prices while you need to make higher prices.
I think there must be something (but I really don't know what) to protect people who work decently, who put losts of effort to their work, learn, create and make new things.
Otherwise there are some people who call themselves CG-Artist and who sat in front of max 3 months ago but downloaded Evermotion Interiors and Exterirors and MOdels from warez sites and just tweak those scenes, change windows, move furniture around, add new furniture.

Please nobody misunderstand me, I am not against usage of Evermotion models or any commercial models, but what I am saying is totally different: nowadays many unskilled people call themself as 3D artist and give EXTRA_LOW prices to the clients just because they show no effort.
And I think this is just decreasing the respect of our job, making clients to perform such competitions.
I am feeling pessimistic about this too.

[samuel_bubat]

Reading something like this makes me sick.

1. your work is very good, nothing to worry about.

2. If it´s not a huge company with a very good reputation that offers a long time
working relationship, don´t even think of wasting your time with competitions like this.

3. No matter what they tell you, you can expect that it was
a decision made about the price, not the quality. It´s always the same blabla
I´ve heard this dozens of times.

4. Usually such companies pick some student who work for a fracture of the usual price.

I remember one case when some potential customer approched us.
"Yeah we have a budget of 20k eur for an image film.
Unfortunately we allready spend 15k eur on some students who couldn´t produce the expected quality.
Could you please do the same thing again for the remaining 5000eur ?"
I have never seen a customer leaving our company that quick

Another story. It was for a Toshiba Commercial.
We were hired to do Still images for a campaign and to setup rigged scenes for an animation.
The final animation would be done by another "company".
We finished everything as requested and send the final scenes to this company.
2 Days later a so called "Technical Director" called us raging on the phone that everything is shit
and it won´t render cause each frame is somehow flickering (Vray 1.09 for those who remember the time).
I told him that he is using cracked software and shall go die in a fire.
We contacted Toshiba, told them everything and a day later we were hired for the animations as well.

Those stories are not directly related to your problem. But it gives a good impression of how
broken this industry can be sometimes.

By the way you can send your demoreel/work to us. info@form3d.de (make a note that i told you to do so).
From time to time we search freelancers for modelling. We´re not searching for a concrete project right now
but, who knows, maybe there will be an opportunity in the future.

cheers,

sam

[EricCamper]

LOL... You gotta love David... Check out Pie Charts as well

To be honest there's a lot of clients that don't actually have the design sense to make a proper judgement on work so you could have had a lucky escape there! There's not much wrong with what you've done, especially considering the time you had to do it. It could be the design treatment of the wireframe overlay was something the clients had seen before and thought was "cool" so they went with that (even though they'll probably end up dropping it for the final thing anyway). I'd personally never bother doing free pitching for work unless it would only take a very short amount of time to make since you could be either working on paid work, working on things you feel represent you better or getting some well needed rest.

This set of emails might give you some insight - http://www.27bslash6.com/bob.html

[RE:FORM_STUDIOS]

This story is a classic... and you've got to love the designs!
http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

[dlparisi]

This story is a classic... and you've got to love the designs!
http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

"NO REWARD"... Love it.

[tricky]

The visualisation industry has changed a lot over the last 10-15 years. There are so many more people advertising CGI services than there once were. As has also been said before a number of times, a business like ArchVis can be very cheap, almost free, to set up. You can download dodgy software, sit in your bedroom/study/bedsit with a £1000 PC and a couple of £500 render nodes and churn out half decent renderings quickly. These people can charge peanuts for their work as it doesn't take much to cover their (non existant) overheads. Where we might charge £3000 for an image, these guys can charge £250 and still be more than happy!

I think if the industry was like it is today when we began, I would never consider setting up an ArchVis company - I can't imagine starting up with an empty portfolio and no track record. The only thing that keeps us in work is reputation, a broad client base and the quality of our work. Pricing projects has never been more difficult than it is now - you'd think after 10+ years, this would have become easier.

It has often been mentioned that part of our job (as high(er) end visualisers) is to educate our clients in what a high quality visualisation is. Whilst true, 90% of the time, you don't get the opportunity to educate the client as they have already made their decision based on the lowest bid.

Added to these difficulties is the fact that generating good images has never been easier. Software like Sketchup allows a large chunk of the ArchVis client base - architects - to create their own images in house that are adequate for many purposes. Vray itself allows very quick and high end exterior images to be created by sticking a Vraysun and sky into a scene and clicking render! 10+ years ago, we were using light rigs comprised of 100 or more spot lights to give a GI 'look', and extra fill lights here, there and everywhere to give the effects that we needed. Only in post production were glossy reflections even contemplated, as rendering them in scene was slow beyond belief.

These are tough times for us all I'm afraid, and it is very hard to give the cloud a silver lining.

"Stand your ground men/women! Don't cave in to the scum who use hooky software! Stiff upper lip!"

(not much of a battle plan, I know!)

[lukx]

[glorybound]

is our market any different than any other market? I think we need to become better sales people. There is an architect on every corner, but the ones who are busy have good sales and marketing.

[prateekvishwa]

There is an architect on every corner, but the ones who are busy have good sales and marketing.

Keypoint! being good in your work is one thing , but u need to be a good salespersong aswell, either you do it yourself of hire someone for this.