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Estimate your work time!

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How long does it take you to make something? Let's get a feel for it in 2015.

From start to finish considering the usual errors and reworks too.
You can use hours, or days, approximations, etc. Feel free to add more objects that are more relevent to you.

1 day = 8 hours, a week = 5 days.

Medium quality = think PS2/PS3 graphics, basically less on the small details, more about pumping something out to a average standard, not AAA.

State whether realistic or stylized.

So:

AAA Barrel:
Medium Quality Barrel:

AAA Water Well:
MQ Water Well:

AAA Organic sculpture (human/animal):
MQ Organic sculpture (human/animal):

AAA Boulders and rocks:
MQ Boulders and rocks:

AAA Tree:
MQ Tree:

AAA Assault Rifle:
MQ Assault Rifle:

AAA Vehicle Car:
MQ Vehicle Car:

AAA Interior only house level, unfurnished (walls, ceilings, floors, windows, lights):
MQ:

AAA Character Human:
MQ:

remember feel free to add any objects relevant to you.

OK including pictures to help make things easier, basically think of it as a client just asked you to remake something exactly the same. AAA standard.

Barrel:

tE8KAZMjpg1

Water Well:

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Sculpture:

P3tncEEjpg1

Boulders & rocks:

OXV3oRPjpg1

Trees:

D62848ljpg1

Assault rifle:

yAS0Moujpg1

Cars:

jA6fFNTjpg1

Now as for AAA vs Medium quality it's hard to define but best example would be like the Assault rifle from a CoD game (AAA) vs a Assault Rifle from GTA 5 (Medium quality, basically doesn't have the smaller details)

Replies

  • lefix
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    lefix polycounter lvl 11
    Each Asset is different. Instead of that list, why not post something you have made, and include the time? :P
  • kanga
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    kanga quad damage
    This is an important point for freelancers.
  • loggie24
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    loggie24 polycounter lvl 3
    I would like to know this myself. I know it depends but a rough estimate wouldn't hurt
  • DireWolf
    Hard to say because it really depends... Roughly what I'd expect from full time artists in my studio

    AAA Barrel: 3 days.
    AAA Water Well: too broad. N/A
    AAA Organic sculpture (human/animal): N/A
    AAA Boulders and rocks: 1 boulder 3 days. Rocks for scattering on the floor should be much faster or even procedural.
    AAA Tree: Again too broad.
    AAA Assault Rifle: 2 weeks
    AAA Vehicle Car: 2-3 weeks.
    AAA Character Human: 3 weeks.

    Sometimes the client will want their models much sooner than that even for AAA games. Once, each our artist needed to rush 3 swords/axes in a week complete from model to texture.
  • slosh
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    slosh hero character
    Id say AAA character is the most dependent on specific project factors. It could take anywhere from a week to 3 months. I'm gonna say 4 week average for larger AAA titles.
  • R3D
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    R3D interpolator
    Based on my studio

    Barrel: 4-8 hours
    Water well: 8-16 hours
    Boulders/rocks 8-16 hourss
    Tree: dunno
    Assault Rifle: 2 weeks
    Vehicle Car: 2-4 weeks
    Character: 1-3 months
  • Goeddy
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    Goeddy greentooth
    this is all too general to give definite answers, for example a AAA-car could be a car standing around in an FPS, that could be done in a week. or it could be a car in a racing game, with intiriors and way more complex lods that could take up to 2 months.

    even a rifle, can be totally different depending if its used in an FPS or in a 3rd person shooter.
  • Eric Chadwick
    blazed, editing out your estimates was really not cool.
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
    Medium quality sounds mediocre and I don't care for mediocre.

    I get what you are saying with the technical limitations but really that just has to do with optimizing your low poly assets more with a lower triangle count and possibly smaller texture sizes/simpler shaders?

    So really I see no point in trying to differentiate the time between "Medium" and AAA.

    I mean what are you going to tell employer's/clients? Hire me! I can create a "medium quality" (read mediocre) barrel in 1-2 days?

    I would just drop 'Medium quality' let the Art Directors and leads to determine the technical goals for the project. Because it is probably going to be on a 'per project' basis.

    Estimating is okay, but I really see no point in trying to estimate anything less than AAA.
  • Deathstick
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    Deathstick polycounter lvl 7
    I think what he really means when he says AAA versus Medium is the actual level of detail.
    Replace AAA with a model viewed up close in first person view and medium with third-person and it makes a bit more sense.

    Especially with his comparison of a first person shooter weapon where a lot of areas are relatively linear so it's way easier to go crazy with the polycounts due to lots of objects being culled, versus the weapons in GTA V which were really made for a third-person view in an open world game, though they did up the texture res and models for the first-person mode in the latest consoles and PC versions.

    One point that's not brought up and actually greatly affects the time it takes to create something, is whether you are recreating something or making it from scratch. Obviously working from a concept seems to pretty common, but translating a piece of concept art into a 3D model and figuring out how it'll look like in the texturing still would take up a lot more time than someone telling you to just recreate how the barrel looks in Skyrim.

    Time is also dependent on the art style, technical limitations, special set of requirements (make this desk drawer able to be opened with an animation versus static as a simple example), what's the workflow you're using, will there be different LODs, is this viewable from only certain angles are all angles, are assets kitbashed or mostly unique, how much is tileable, are there any special sets of materials being created, is this piece going to be reused often or do we just need some background filler that will be seen for 5 seconds or a hero piece that'll really stand out and look good in our promo materials etc.
  • kanga
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    kanga quad damage
    All the stuff that Deathstick wrote and a big factor is budget. Not only is there medium budget but there is also low budget as well. This is something freelancers know only too well :)
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    If it follows a high to low workflow, assuming I try my best at all of it.

    Barrel:
    1 day

    Water well:
    3-4 days

    Sculpture:
    I suck at these so probably a week or more. I haven't spent any time on sculptures etc so it would require some experimenting.

    Rocks:
    Depends on how many but probably 1 or 2 a day at least.

    Trees:
    Same here but 1 would probably take at least a couple of days as I would like to bake everything down from high polys. I could re-use a lot of the bakes for several variations of the tree so once I got that done I can probably create a bunch of them in a short time.

    AR:
    4-5 days assuming I have refs ready. Edit: Actually, on second thought, it would definitely take me longer. 1-1,5 weeks for high poly, low poly and texturing.

    Car:
    Haven't done any cars before so probably a month depending on complexity. Could be a lot more or less. Hard to say.

    It's hard to answer these with certainty though, because it all depends on so much.
  • Kevin Albers
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    Kevin Albers polycounter lvl 18
    Barrel: 1-2 days
    Water well: 3-4 days
    Boulders/rocks: depends on complexity
    Tree: 3-5 days
    Assault Rifle: 2-3 weeks, assuming it's used in fps view (i.e. really up close)
    Vehicle Car: 3-6 weeks (assuming any interior is rather simple).
    Character:4-6 weeks for non 'hero'. for main character in a AAA game, several months...
  • Lazerus Reborn
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    Lazerus Reborn polycounter lvl 8
    Get Rescuetime, runs in the background monitors time spent in each application, ranks them according to entertainment, work, development etc. Pretty nice at seeing how much time you spend on games etc
  • elec²ron
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    elec²ron polycounter lvl 12
    While its nice to have a general timescale for a project to make sure your not going to overload people what i have found is that every asset time estimate iv given has been wrong. If you add that up over a whole project you just get a big wrong number.

    Whats more important is the order and priority of tasks. we just assume that everyone is professional and will attempt to do everything as quickly as possible. Working with a profit share helps with this.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    elec²ron wrote: »
    While its nice to have a general timescale for a project to make sure your not going to overload people what i have found is that every asset time estimate iv given has been wrong. If you add that up over a whole project you just get a big wrong number.

    Whats more important is the order and priority of tasks. we just assume that everyone is professional and will attempt to do everything as quickly as possible. Working with a profit share helps with this.

    That's why it would make a lot of sense for a company to add quantitative data like this to their post-mortems or internal learning processes, so you can use data, like how long on average certain assets took, and use them into estimation for their next project. If you use something like Jira or Hansoft and do proper tracking, you should be able to get these values.

    For increased accuracy you could compare these values to e.g. the data in this thread and see if your own values are in the same ballpark range.

    Also, use some multiplier with the values you got (1.2 or 1.5) to account for new tools, processes, and other unknowns of a new production.
  • DavidCruz
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    DavidCruz interpolator
    Ryswick wrote: »
    Character: 1-3 months
    I like that time-frame, saw people saying 3 days to 1 week only, I managed to make that time but so welcoming to see 1-3 Months, thanks for that.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    If it follows a high to low workflow, assuming I try my best at all of it.

    Barrel:
    1 day

    Water well:
    3-4 days

    Sculpture:
    I suck at these so probably a week or more. I haven't spent any time on sculptures etc so it would require some experimenting.

    Rocks:
    Depends on how many but probably 1 or 2 a day at least.

    Trees:
    Same here but 1 would probably take at least a couple of days as I would like to bake everything down from high polys. I could re-use a lot of the bakes for several variations of the tree so once I got that done I can probably create a bunch of them in a short time.

    AR:
    4-5 days assuming I have refs ready. Edit: Actually, on second thought, it would definitely take me longer. 1-1,5 weeks for high poly, low poly and texturing.

    Car:
    Haven't done any cars before so probably a month depending on complexity. Could be a lot more or less. Hard to say.

    It's hard to answer these with certainty though, because it all depends on so much.

    1- 1.5 week for the entire weapon lol geez i must be really slow
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    1- 1.5 week for the entire weapon lol geez i must be really slow
    It all depends on so much. I could probably spend 8 hrs every day for that amount of time and get a decent result, or a month and get it even better. But I can't spend 1-2 hours each day for 1.5 weeks just to make things clear. 8 hrs is a normal work day and quite a lot of time to get things done.

    Also, do I have refs? Are there complicated shapes? Lots of texture work? Etc etc.
  • skyline5gtr
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    skyline5gtr polycounter lvl 9
    True alot does depend on the overall shape and associated work
  • mryogesh123
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    mryogesh123 polycounter lvl 10
    Its good to see these figures, I would definitely agree that consideration must be taken to the priority of the asset within game. Also (depending on job) whether you are also responsible for importing the asset within the desired game engine and setting up collision, LOD's and material shaders.
    Being a generalist myself, my time scales vary depending on the type of asset I am making.
    Modular building kit with PBR textures and shaders (UE4) - 1 week
    Dropship (Vehicle) - 10 days
    UGR-dropship-color.jpg
    oysterbar_mire_by_zombie_ninja-d88qnfg.jpg
    The building was 5 Days
  • Add3r
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    Add3r polycounter lvl 11
    If there is a very clear concept piece or vision for the gun, moderate difficulty of shapes, and 8hrs or so a day... I think 2 weeks for a gun from start to finish with High Poly, to Low poly, to PBR materials, in game is very reasonable. That being said, most weapons go through a lot of iteration at a AAA level, so i say double the time till it's "finalized" to be safe. A lot of the above estimates if averaged together, IMO, are pretty accurate.

    With clear vision of asset and no major iteration required:
    Barrel: 8 hours
    Water well: 8-16 hours
    Boulders/Rocks: 8-16 hours (depending on size and ability to tile)
    Tree: 2 days (but this art can be used as a kit to build many many trees as stated above)
    Assault Rifle: 2 weeks
    Vehicle Car: 1-2months (second most circumstantial, as I can build a forklift in a week but a major gameplay vehicle can be up to 2 months, depending on complexity.)
    Character: 1-3 months (REALLY circumstantial, definitely the most)
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Here are some estimates of mine, based on what's expected of me, and based on what I can do. I left out things I've never done:

    (After each estimation, there should be a "depending on everything" appended)

    AAA Barrel: 2 days
    Medium Quality Barrel: 1 day

    AAA Water Well: 3 to 4 days
    MQ Water Well: 2 to 3 days

    AAA Boulders and rocks: 1/2 a day per medium-sized rock, ~a day per large cliff rocks.
    MQ Boulders and rocks: Probably use tiling textures. Maybe 2 to 3 days for a whole set? Most of that time spent making an amazing tiling texture.

    AAA Assault Rifle: 10 to 15 days
    MQ Assault Rifle: <10 days
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