has anyone done some realtime visualization project before?

weee

the target would be those interior design company, constructor, real estate agency or such, utilizing some realtime engine like Unreal or Unity so you can walk in it realtime, it's a niche market and new I have no idea how much to charge if such project comes up, any ideas or suggestions (let's assume its in US), cheers.

Eric Chadwick

It's not all that different from any other freelance work, to be honest.

I've done a bit of this kind of work, as a US artist for a UK client. The rates are lower in the UK, but it depends a lot on which client you get.

Architects and interior designers are notoriously cheap. The construction companies have more money. They build full-scale real-world mockups in a warehouse, just to test everything out, adjust proportions, figure out where electrical goes, etc.

As for prices, we have some rates here for game work:
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Freelance#Freelance_Rates

Add3r

Super circumstantial. We need much much more info to even begin giving accurate ideas of what you should ask for. Your skill level, tasks you will be carrying out, amount of time/skill/software needed, size of company (this does make an impact for me personally. I wouldn't ask AS much from a smaller family owned firm, enough to be content/happy with money made and pay for all other expenses required for job), etc etc etc.

That being said, I have seen rates go from US $20/hr all the way up to $45/hr for standard level modeling jobs for construction and construction training pre-viz. They only pay for hours worked and final product, assume you are supplying software 99% time. They will assist with engine and other types of supporting software licensing that they will technically own though, so for example the engine or web publishing software you use.

kanga

Make a prototype first. I would personally choose Unity3d because I know they are putting out version 5 with the possibility of doing away with the need for browser plugin download using html 5. Making a demo has the advantage of showing what is possible, allows you to see how long it will take and how much effort you will need to put into the product. As to how much to charge, time your project and break it down in work hours and cost of production. You can handle this initially as a freelance timeframe, which means determining what it costs to live each year and divide that into 15 work weeks (generally the time that a freelancer can spend on actual fulltime work). You probably have not done this if you dont know your hourly rate yet.

I think you will be surprise at how expensive it is to produce something like this, although I reckon it is a great idea. Determining a price will be dependant on the quality of the demo and your ability to sell the service plus the price the competition is charging globally not regionally. Google shows people are busy with this but there doesnt seem to be a slick bizz with a site that offers the service yet, at least not one I could find. I think it is only really interesting if the work is browser compatible (all of them), and only if customers dont have to download software to view it. Realize also that any game based product you put on the web will be ripable I guess.

Good luck!

Eric Chadwick

I'm curious how you arrived at 15 work weeks? Is there a calculation for this?

VelvetElvis

Here's the thing about doing real time viz work. Can you complete the task in 2 days and have the ability to make changes at the 11th hour? If you can't then avoid even trying to pitch this idea to architects. Most of the time, work for architects means your are in bid, SD or DD phases which during that time the project has a very high risk of major changes coming every hour.

You can try to look at developers who need tours for their properties, they would be the ones who would more than likely use this technology. Plus at that stage of the project, the design is pretty well signed off on as 100% construction plans have been submitted.

The one big hindrance to this is that the developer is going to build a physical model home or unit. They can re-sell that unit after they have sold most of their other properties. They can't re-sell your tour. Your tour is an upfront cash investment that has no resale value. You need to be able to convince them that even though it is an upfront investment for them, it is a very wise investment. So you'll want to show interactivity and things that model units can't do, like swapping paint and cabinet colors on the fly. Swapping furniture styles and showing room configuration options.