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Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 14:46:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: Shawn Joyce <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: What do you charge?
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I have noticed several people on the net asking how to charge for animation.
I have only done one professional CG job (to 30sec. spots for local tv) so
I am not extremely experienced.  I did the job "on spec."  If they liked my
work they would buy it for $3500.  If they didn't they didn't have to pay
(and couldn't use it, of course).  I did it as a one price for the whole job.
I ended up taking two months to get the work done because of video recording
problems and having to please a 14 person committie.  I found this on the
old lightwave mailing list last year and thought it had some good ideas for
how to price animations.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Toast Production
by Brent Malnack
Simple Ways of Setting Prices for Animation Work
I'm frequently asked how much to charge for animation services and how to
determine how long an animation project will take to complete.  This month
I hope to answer these questions and provide desktop animators with a few
tips as well.

How Much?
The answer to the amount of money to charge for an animation relates largely
to your animation skills.  For those with an understanding of 3-D animation
and confidence that they can fulfill the client's needs, follow these guide-
lines:

1. Never do anything for less than $500.  No matter how simple the project,
  charge a base price commensurate with  the sophistication of the service.
  Three-dimensional animation is a complex process, and it should carry a
  firm price.  Although the Toaster costs less than a 3-D workstation, it
  is capable of creating 3-D images and animations that equal the work of
  workstations.
2. Never give anything away.  If you give clients a "good deal" to get them
  in the door initially, they will never become accustomed to being charged
  the true price for the service later.  They will object to the true price
  on the grounds that the project at hand could not cost twice as much as
  the initial project.  Climbing out of this trap is nearly impossible.
  It's best if you avoid it entirely by charging the true price initially.
3. Bid jobs based on the project.  Although many animation houses do so, I
  never have been able to set an hourly rate or establish a rate per finished
  second of animation.  The easiest way to price jobs is to estimate how long
  it will take and charge accordingly.  I usually figure $500 per day.
4. Charge for changes.  I work with clients in three stages.  First, I talk
  to clients until I'm reasonably certain I see what they are imagining.
  The more I understand the client's desires, the easier the job will be.
  Next, I begin modeling objects.  Once I've modeled the objects, I put
  together a wireframe test for the client to approve.  The wireframe is
  usually a rough version of what will happen in the final animation.  I
  take notes on any changes that the client wants. I also usually include
  a couple of high-resolution stills from different parts of the animation.
  Between the wireframe motion test and the stills, the client should have
  a sound understanding of the finished animation.  Upon the client's
  request, I will render a low-resolution test animation to videotape.
  As a rule of thumb, I charge about 10 percent of the entire animation
  price for the low-resolution test. After gaining client approval and
  finishing any changes, I make one final call to verify that the change
  conforms to the client's wishes.  Then I push the big "RENDER" button
  and take off the rest of the day.  I render frames to my hard drive and
  later lay them to tape.  This puts a lot less wear on the videotape
  machine.  If clients want changes at this point, it will cost them.
  I charge a fee equal to 25 percent of the project cost to rerender an
  animation.

With these guidelines you have half the formula.  Now you must be able to
calculate how long a project will take to complete.

Modeling Time
Calculating Modeling Time is tough.  If you have done a lot of modeling,
you should be able to make an educated guess.  If you're new to this, don't
take a project that has a deadline of three days.  As you get better at
modeling objects, you will be able to make better models and reduce
rendering time by minimizing polygons.

Rendering Time
The easiest way to estimate rendering time is to render a low-resolution
picture and then multiply by four for a medium-resolution image and by
four again for a high-resolution image.  In general, these approximations
will be close to the actual rendering time.  If the image takes one minute
in low-resolution mode to render, it will take 16 minutes in high-resolution.

Smoothing
If you set an object's surface to Smooth, rendering time will increase by
about 10 percent.  Make sure you don't smooth unnecessarily because this
will add to the rendering time.

Ray-Traced Reflections
Avoid them at all costs.  Although attractive, a ray-traced rendered image
will take on average nine times longer than the same image rendered without
ray tracing.  If a client wants ray tracing, triple the cost and borrow
another machine to maximize rendering time.

Ray-Traced Shadows
I also recommend avoiding ray-traced shadows.  If you are crafty, it is much
wiser to model shadows than render them.  It isn't as hard as it sounds.
If you can draw a shadow for an object on a piece of paper, then you should
not have much trouble modeling one.  A good setting is a color of R=30,
G=30, B=30 with a transparency level of about 70 percent.  This can vary
depending on the look you are trying to achieve.  On average, ray-traced
shadows should take about 4.5 times longer.

Shortcuts
Numerous methods exist to minimize rendering time.
First, remember that the larger the area of the screen that is filled, the
longer the animation will take to render.  For instance, I can render a
20,000-polygon object in 10 seconds on my system if I place it far away
from the camera.  The same image filling the screen might take an hour.
Thus, one way to save time is to lock down the camera.  If the objects in
the animation move but the camera does not, you can then pull the background
trick.  Render a frame with only the objects and anything else that doesn't
move.  Load this  image in as a background image, and you'll save an enormous
amount of time.

Second, don't render multiple frames of the same image.  If there is a place
in the animation where everything remains the same for a little while, render
that frame once and record it manually for as long as it is needed.  This
will come in handy when you need to fly a logo into the shot, have it park
for a few seconds and then fly off the screen.  If you intend to try this,
be sure to set up a keyframe identical to the frame in which the logo parks.
This keyframe should immediately follow the parking frame.  At the keyframe
be sure to define the motion as linear.  This will ensure a smooth transition
when the motion begins again.

Third, render the animation in medium resolution.  This is sometimes a tough
call.  If the animation is not going on air, you may want to test some frames
in medium resolution.  I've gotten away from this practice, but it took a
68040 accelerator and a second system to do so.  Some animations worked
fine in medium resolution.

Fourth, don't use procedural textures, if possible.  If you can avoid using
built in textures, such as a wood or marble, rendering will be quicker.
The rendered frame also will look more realistic if digitized images are
used as texture maps.  Even creating checkerboard surface takes a long time.
If you must use procedural textures, use the lowest settings possible to
achieve the look you're after.  Test-render the surface with different
frequency settings to determine the lowest you can get away with.  Each
time you raise the frequency level, you are multiplying the time it takes
to calculate that surface by 1.5.

Fifth, remember that everything adds to rendering time.  Adding to the
diffuse, specularity, transparency and other settings all mean more time
and labor.  Each increase in percentage adds slightly to the number of
calculations LightWave performs.

Sixth, make false objects.  If you don't see the back side of an object,
and it doesn't move, cut the back polygons off.  Much like a Hollywood
movie set, if it isn't seen, don't make it.  I know the purists will
continue to make models with great detail.  This is fine if you want to
resell the objects later on.  However, in commercial animation I recommend
hacking off anything that cannot be seen.  Load the objects into the modeler,
open up the volume tool, encase unwanted polygons and delete them.  It's not
a bad idea to model the entire object, keep it and then whack off the
unneeded polygons and have the original handy for use later.
Finally, don't bite off more than you can chew know your limits.  Never
start off a meeting with the client by showing them the NewTek Revolution
type and telling them that you can produce animations of that caliber.
More impressive is to put together a reel of different types of animations
that you have created.  This way you are not creating false expectations.



THE BOTTOM LINE
Most importantly, charge rates that are in line with that of other animators
in the area.  Call your competitors and request rates and a demo reel.  If
their animations are far superior to yours, it's probably a good idea not to
charge as  much.

About the Author:
Brent Malnack is a former Video Toaster product manager and software design
team member at NewTek Inc. A six-year Amiga veteran, he is currently the art
director for Great Plains Motion Picture Co. in Omaha, Neb.  Aside from
computer graphics production, Brent speaks at conferences and consults for
organizations on real-world uses for computer and video technology.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

   A couple of points - procedural textures in RenderMan are sometimes
*faster* than texture or reflection maps. Shadow maps in 3D Studio are
much faster (as a precentage of rendering time) than in Lightwave, so it
isn't as important to avoid them.


                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               [e-mail] (his)
                                 [e-mail]      (hers)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

procedural textures in Stratavision and Strata Studio Pro are faster than
regular texutres.

I hope this information is usefull.

Shawn Joyce
[e-mail]