Architectural Pre-Vis
polycounter lvl 13
I am curious if anyone has any experience in this industry, or knows of the type of eduction/training you need to get a job in this field. I'm also curious if anyone knows of websites similar to Polycount, but for this industry. Lastly I am curious about the demand for pre-vis artists. I'm not sure if you need an architecture or similar degree to get into this or what, but I am trying to figure out more info. As an example, here is a company that does what I am talking about in-case I named it wronly in the thread title; http://www.archiform3d.com/3d-renderings/3d-renderings-virtual-reality-miami-florida.php
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I've bumped into this forum a bunch of times searching for environment stuff: CG Architect
this might help out when researching pay: 2011 AUGI Salary Survey
the renders used to take forever because the architect used alot of mirrors and lights and expected to see rendered reflections at A2-A3 size print resolutions ( helloo 1999!!! wtf...) We were working with about 2-3 mil polies and on average about 30-50 lights at the time
The pay was terrible too but I did it because I loved the 3D but one day I just snapped and couldn't take it anymore so I walked out.
Im pretty sure its better organised now and the software workflow must be alot better than it was back then. Ive seen some stuff done by people these days and it looks amazing
their forums Seems somewhat similar to PC with the posting of work and providing & all
I work at an architect firm doing this full time and I came from the gaming industry. We're a group of seven and two have architect degrees, the rest are self taught, me included.
V-Ray is more or less industry standard, it's fast and is pretty easy to set up to get pretty pictures. If you hang around archviz forums, 70-80% of people seem to use V-Ray. I've seen very few people working with Mental Ray, so I have to disagree with Kwramm on that one. Mental ray might have it's points (the main one being that it's free with autodesk software (maybe not all?)), but it's very slow. I've seen people use C4D's and Modo's internal renderers as well, but you can't go wrong with V-Ray. A typical finished image is 50% V-Ray, 50% Photoshop, so good skills in both are good.
You also need to know how to read blueprints and to "speak architect", but you can catch up pretty quickly. I didn't know any of that prior to getting my job. Practice building houses from DWG's and to clean up 3d blueprints coming from Revit (I hope you like rats nests).
Build a portfolio of complete interiors and exteriors (complete as in fully rendered, photoshoped and with people, they always want more people...). Degrees probably won't matter if your portfolio is good.
This blog is good: http://www.ronenbekerman.com/
Inspiration:
http://www.pixelab.be/index.html
http://www.mir.no/
http://www.luxigon.fr/
/lurk
So for me, working with games = sleepless nights and no life outside work, archviz = a more mature market, free time and regular sleep.
Unless you work as a freelancer, then you seem to be screwed no matter what field you're in.
For this particular position, I am setting up the internal viz studio for the company. The trend has been lately for many architects to bring work back in house that they would outsource.
It really depends on where you want to work. Architecture companies are more stringent on degrees/certifications and arch viz studios tend to put your portfolio first. Max and Vray are pretty much required, as they are the industry standards. It helps to at least know how to navigate and export from AutoCAD and Revit, especially if you want to work in an architecture studio or freelance.
Thankfully, I had all that stuff handy. When I got laid off from my previous arch viz stint, I went back to school to get a masters degree. Not that I really need it in this industry, but it was always something personal that I wanted to achieve.
So I've work at both a traditional architecture studio, freelanced, and worked in an arch viz studio over the past 10 years. Each is very different but similar. In an architecture studio, you will be faced with much more changes as half the time you are helping to design the structure. Typically these changes are at the last possible second. It can be very annoying as architects tend to be quite neurotic with their designs. With freelance and arch viz, the structure tends to be much more designed. You get a little more freedom at an arch viz place.
In this industry you will deal with people who will hold up paint swatches to your render to screen and go, "See! I told you Swiss Coffee! You are showing it as Swiss Mocha!" Sometimes the requirements are very stringent in this industry, such as showing a north facing building in actual north facing light conditions(boring) rather than a better looking shot composed with light (not boring). You have to walk a fine line between creative and being sued for not showing real world conditions.
Though I'm not so sure about pre-viz in this industry. Most of the places make it up on the fly, we tend to have a really bad practice of doing pre-viz and production at the same time. Neoscape or Dbox might have a use for pre viz as they tend to do more film-like arch viz.
Real time is nice to have, but this industry again is very old and slow moving. Many principals at architecture studios think that game engines are only for bang-bang shooty games. Or, they want you to take the 50 million poly revit model, put it into UDK, and then expect it to work.
You really should know some level of scripting as you have to double your role as your pipeline tools guy. Many studios don't have dedicated tools guys. You also need to know how to manage and troubleshoot a render farm, as again, most studios don't have proper IT support for this. In arch viz, no matter where you work, you tend to have to be a little more well rounded then you do in games. You have to be able to work on any project, at any stage, and do anything in the process from start to final render. The larger arch viz places usually have things a little more structured, but the smaller places you are pretty much a one man band independent contractor.
Projects also move fast and furious. Back in 2006 at the height of the boom, the arch viz studio I was at did 350 projects in one year. Many of them were small in scope, 1-2 days at tops. Others were 2-3 months long. You tend to bounce around a lot between projects. These days, it's a lot less. My old studio is maybe doing 50 projects.
The economy gutted this industry and it's now just barely coming back. Where I worked, we were at 105 people at our height in 2007. Fast forward to the end of 2008 when I was finally let go, they were down to 6 (2 owners, the owner's wives, and 2 production people).
So in my experience it's this:
Arch Viz Studio: Blind folded people in a closed room running into each other.
Architecture firm: Blind folded people in a closed room running into each other but half the people are holding sticks of dynamite and half are holding lit torches.
As I said, many US based architecture studios are lumbering dinosaurs. It's an arrogance on their part to say, "Well, we all have masters degrees at a minimum here." The job requirements were crazy and the interview process was even more so. I was floored by the whole process to tell you the truth. It's almost as if they made the process so nuts to discourage people. Hell, for entry level positions they either require a 4-year degree or 7 years of industry related work. This is absolutely not normal, with the exception of a handful of the larger firms.
They treat the viz side like the architecture/engineering side and you can't do that. Most of the top talent won't measure up to their "standards" and that's sad. Though since I've been here, I've been able to get into the hiring process and start to relax the requirements in favor of artist talent. We weren't getting many applications, I wonder why right?
I got my masters degree just because I wanted to teach at the university level at some point in my life and at the time in 2009 the architecture economy was in the shits. It really had nothing to do with the industry, as it's rarely required.
I'd say for 95% of the viz jobs out there, your basic degree is more than enough. But if you want to work for the larger firms, you have to jump though so many hoops. Many of the smaller architecture studios and new blood studios have far less requirements. They are focusing on the art and form, rather than old world thinking of degrees and certificates. Now, the larger studios are having to play catch-up to the smaller ones. For far too long the seedy phrase in this industry was "good enough."
Here is where I work: http://www.som.com/ I won't go into specifics though. I will say this, once I got in the place is fairly open and creative. I thought there would be much more red tape given the process to get in, but that's rarely the case.
That there is
I'm 39, and in my final year of a 3D CGI Modelling & Animation BSc (Hons) Degree (Arch-Viz Pathway), in Bournemouth, UK.
I can relate to a lot of what has been written as stuff that is recognised as typical of the profession, but what I didn't realise was, that the profession is perceived to be a bit of a pain-in-the-ass by people in the job. It was somewhat alarming, considering I have retrained with a view to moving into the field!
Granted, things may be different in everyone's experience, but I've been hoping that my skills may find a use in Product Viz, or TV & Film, if the Arch-Viz work doesn't work out. This may by necessary by the sounds of it. "Dynamite in the Dark" lol - no thanks!