Animations

[glorybound]

I don't do animations, but I am getting a lot or requests. I talk them out of it, and they usually go with stills. I have a client who wants something like the below link, but for a different house. The animation to the link isn't stellar, but it is pretty good, and I'm hoping I can do better. What would you charge for the below animations, only hopefully a higher quality? I know, I am going to get a wide gamut of feedback, but maybe I can average it. You can email me your opinion if you would like.

Info@bobby-parker.com

http://tours.tourfactory.com/tours/t...=1296598&idx=1

I am thinking a per second things, if that makes more sense.

[glorybound]

Hmmm.... $100 per second would make the one on the web page $30,000. That is extreme, so what would it be?

[pixelplume]

loaded question of course! how many rooms? both outside and inside, etc.

easily 2-3 weeks of labor....

Things to think about:

- render farm fee - you have that awesome machine but you will still need to send it out.....may be $2k for that
- time to set up animation for cameras, render out pre viz.....then get feedback, then resend
- "still images are sooo much easier!" rings through my head in the middle of an animation project. so many weird little things go wrong.....especially with modeling. I spend a ton of time cleaning up the models to make them airtight. Revit models are crappy imports (as you know) but with animation there are so many more places things can go wrong. I rebuild a bunch of stuff from scratch in max.
- changing your render recipe to work with animation.....tons of time testing this out. the whole speed/quality thing.
- plants are a nightmare - shimmering and flickering

[Neilg]

An easy way to do it would be to charge a per scene amount the same as your still pricing, then add on a lower per second fee to cover rendertimes.
Think of it like a series of stills - keep the camera movement basic. Dont do a walkthrough that has one super long path as your first animation.

Render the entire thing as a very quick (1min frame time low res) grey sequence very, very early on - edit it to music and work with them to get sign off on it before you render any sequences high quality.
At the same time, develop each shot as if it's your normal still image process to get sign off on the look. Just do it lower res, and keep the post production basic (use after effects. magic bullet looks might work well for you)
Your cameras should not be so long they cant approve each shot within a single image.
Write all this into your contract. Only render the fully detailed scenes once, after signoff of pacing/length, and after signoff on a still taken from the middle. You shouldn't have to render 1 frame more than your total frame count, and from developing the stills you'll be able to know the average rendertime of each shot. Before starting any of the final rendering you should be able to predict exactly when each sequence will finish and how much power you need for it.

[glorybound]

I figured 4 weeks, however, that is based on stills. They want the following:

1. A fly around of the exterior – from the street up around the house to the rear yard area and back to the driveway.
2. A walk up from the street (using the site steps) to the front door.
3. A walk thru from the front door – down the hall and into living room – thru the dining room and into the kitchen, with existing exterior views to the ocean.
4. A walk thru up the stairs, into the master suite – with the existing views represented out the windows.

I don't think that they know what they are asking for and how much work it takes.

[Neilg]

Break them all up into shorter camera paths - the exterior fly around is probably 3 cameras (2 aerial to set the overall impression, one that looks at the front and lowers in height), ground level street & front door is 2 shots, front door to living - then dining to kitchen is at least 2 shots (maybe 3 depending on layout), master suite & view is 2 shots.

9, maybe 10 shots.

[glorybound]

I was thinking the very thing. What would it cost to render each room with 2 views and then figure out the animation per second.

[glorybound]

I mentioned to him that the Ken Burns effect can get you pretty far and that would be done in post production.

Break them all up into shorter camera paths - the exterior fly around is probably 3 cameras, street & front door is 2, front door to living - then dining to kitchen is at least 2 shots (maybe 3), master suite & view is 2 shots.

[Neilg]

Dont just zoom on stills. if you're doing an animation, move the cameras. if they wont pay for it then dont do it.

[glorybound]

Dont just zoom on stills. if you're doing an animation, move the cameras. if they wont pay for it then dont do it.

I know what it costs to pan/zoom a still, which is basically the cost of the still, but I'm not as comfortable with the price on the animation. Actually, I'm not comfortable doing the animation. The example has all kind of flickering and long boring paths. I hear horror stories about flickering and I know you have to approach animations different than you would a still. 40 minutes per frame isn't an option for a 700 frame animation. Maybe I'm over thinking things and I should just decide on a price. The example could very well be some rendering sweatshop and they paid a couple hundred bucks for it. A 10 thousand dollar quote might make them laugh.

[Neilg]

It's been nearly 5 years since i've seen any flickering in animation. it's actually pretty hard to do these days.

[VelvetElvis]

Ken Burns, aka parallax, the stills. Though, setting up the proper parallax takes time, you don't have the sheer overhead in number of frames to render. Combo that with some choice full animation cameras and you should have a decent walk through. This script should help with the setup of your scenes, http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/ap-parallax

Just say no to the twirl-n-hurl type of architectural animations.

[glorybound]

I am just surprised that animations cost what they do. If you take the example's 5-minute animation, and let's say it is $100 per second, that is $30,000. Now, their animation isn't any special, so even at 1/2 the going rate, it would be $15,000. I read numbers from $100 to $300 per second and I also read 10,000 a minute. This are some huge numbers.

[glorybound]

Ken Burns, aka parallax, the stills. Though, setting up the proper parallax takes time, you don't have the sheer overhead in number of frames to render. Combo that with some choice full animation cameras and you should have a decent walk through. This script should help with the setup of your scenes, http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/ap-parallax Just say no to the twirl-n-hurl type of architectural animations.

twirl and hurl! Funny. I would do the pan/zoom in After Effects.

[Neilg]

Price is all relative. we were paid $1.1m for our 432PA film. We spent it all too.

What would you charge for 10 still images? At the quality level of your stills, $30k is very reasonable.