Info: going rate for 1,500 tri model+texture
I collect data. I'm a data hoarder 
I also share data. I don't know if this is of use to anyone, but it might be.
I was recently looking for a 3D modeler (now closed). I recorded all the quotes people gave me.
The job: a 3D model of a hamster, 1,500 tri, with a diffuse texture, for use in Blender and Unity.
The quotes:
£65
£90
£120
£130
£130
£130
£135
£165
£200
£325
£375
£585
£850
There were 15 applicants: 13 gave a quote, 1 was too unprofessional to be able to give a quote, and 1 had copy/pasted the same e-mail they send to all jobs.
After looking through everyone's portfolios, I went with one that was £130. My decision was a mix price and how well the portfolio matched my project.
I also share data. I don't know if this is of use to anyone, but it might be.I was recently looking for a 3D modeler (now closed). I recorded all the quotes people gave me.
The job: a 3D model of a hamster, 1,500 tri, with a diffuse texture, for use in Blender and Unity.
The quotes:
£65
£90
£120
£130
£130
£130
£135
£165
£200
£325
£375
£585
£850
There were 15 applicants: 13 gave a quote, 1 was too unprofessional to be able to give a quote, and 1 had copy/pasted the same e-mail they send to all jobs.
After looking through everyone's portfolios, I went with one that was £130. My decision was a mix price and how well the portfolio matched my project.
Replies
In your case, it sounds right on the money, although I'm honestly disgusted by the person asking for 850 quids for a model of a hamster, that's not something even people on Turbosquid would ask for in the cloudiest of days.
Odds are that this person charges that amount because they're good enough to ask it, or because they have so much work already they're in effect 'selling' their leisure time. It can be better to inflate your price to where it's worth it than to say 'no'.
I should start selling more hp models, then..
As for the 850 one though, most likely due to things like VAT and Tax sometimes messing up international business a bit.. And then there's currencies to consider as well. It would of course also depend on the detail level, though as for it only being a alpha/prototype, it might had been a tad much
I work more in the AAA space, but to give you an example, this is the type of info I give out in briefs to outsourcers:
Software (Maya 2012, 3DSMAX 2013)
Polycount (1500 tris)
Texture count, sizes, and type (3 512x512 textures, head+upper body+lower body, diff+norm+spec)
Sculpt required, or is Crazybump\Xnormal okay? (no sculpt)
Target engine (UDK, Unity, etc)
Target screen resolution (in general but especially for mobile)
Player perspective (FPS, third person, top-down iso)
Timeframe (2wks, 4wks)
Concept or reference provided?
Sample asset provided?
Deliverable items (finished .MA file with texture flats in TGA format with layered PSDs)
Not sure what your final result would look like, but this is how I'd bid on that: 1500 poly char with three 512s, third person camera view, rough concepts provided, no sculpt needed:
Model: 2.5 days
Textures: 4 days
Fixes\tweaks: 1.5 days
Total: 8 days
Then it boils down to day-rate. Average rates for a US-based freelancer is about $300\day. That can go as low as 250 or as high as 600, but let's keep it average. $300\day * 8 days = $2400.
Just a fun thought exercise I guess.
I am really interested in the quality bar for this model. It definitely is on the lower end price range, even though its a very simple model...
was rigging required as well?
Depending on Rigging + Quality Bar / Art Direction this should be minimum 2 day job max 3 day job (if rigging is involved).
And the average Freelancer charges around $200 - $250 a day here in Canada...
Always depending on the job and complexity of the job itself of course...
I would have guessed it would be around $400 on the low end and then $700 on the high end...
only my 2 cents and always like to be corrected if applicable
I mean, it better be the best damn hamster you've ever seen in a videogame, but it's possible.
I do similar anthropomorphic animal characters at work, about 1500 tris and hand painted diffuse only textures - the turn around on model & texture is typically 3-4 days.
yeah pretty much this. my rates aren't quite as high as that, but they're almost there.
Still, even if 850 pounds is reasonable in theory, I think it only works when you're pretty damn succesful already and you get so many offers that it's not a problem if 60% of potential clients are put off by your prices and choose someone else.
so we do end up again at around $800 - 1200 Can...
To get predictable results from outsourcing, you should provide a benchmark asset that represents specs, fidelity, art style and quality that you expect to get back. Of course, you could always outsource the first model and use it as a benchmark for the other models. As long as you are satisfied with that first one, things should get more predictable for the others.
20-25 hours is about 3 average working days. Depending on the fidelity, necessity of rigging and such ... I can totally believe it taking that long.
Low-end overseas art studio: $140 - 180\day ($17.50 - 22.50\hr)
Average overseas art studio: $200\day ($25\hr)
High-end overseas art studio: $300\day ($37.50\hr)
Low-end domestic art studio: $350\day ($43.75\hr)
Average domestic art studio: $500\day ($62.50\hr)
High-end domestic art studio: $800\day ($100\hr. this is rare, usually it's boutique studios)
The range of rates I see for individual contractors are $250 - 375\day overseas, and $275 - 500\day domestic. Sometimes it goes higher, but domestically, contract artists typically charge around $300\day. Bids come from the time estimate multiplied by the day rate, rather than "I'll do it for this flat rate" which could get you into infinite revision trouble.
Hope that helps too!
but there is always the ones that drop the numbers down...
Low-end individual (post grad student) Freelancer: Free - $50/day
Average individual Freelancer: $80 - 120/day
its sad how it drops the market down so low, but then i somewhat understand them as well... from being desperate to misinformed...
Thank you for your briefs example, I'll use that in the future.
Here is the model that was created:
1615 tris. The artist is currently working on the texture. References.
Something that I'd like to add to this topic: If your bids are being continually undercut by other people, then the supply is higher than the demand, and you might have to lower your rates to stay competitive.
look at construction sites and their biding wars... you don't see houses build for free... while in our industry you have desperate enough people to work for free...
this shouldn't be the case...
For 1500 Tri's 512x512 Textures I would charge around $3000 depending on the complexity. ($75/hour)
$80 a day is below minimum wage where I'm from. Absolutely no chance that's 'Average' for a freelancer.
I'm saying the art is a large portion of the value in the game.
There's an indie studio in Austin, Tiger Style, that didn't have the budget to pay their freelancers that well so they promised them royalties as well after the game shipped. After their first title was successful they started paying their freelancers better but they also continued to pay royalties and bonuses because they recognized that those artists had a hand in their success.
but most clients don't cause they know there to many desperate people out there...
In hindsight, I've regret working on anything that never paid 'properly'. Jobs that Low-ball usually lead to VERY late payments, having to 'lawyer up' to get paid in a small claims court, and legally fighting for a percentage of my 'low-balled' payment.
Avoid those jobs like the plague, and work for actual minimum wage. It's shitty, but the peace of mind knowing when you're going to get paid is pretty significant.
You're my hero, thanks for elaborating. Are all UFC Champions as knowledgeable about game art? :poly124:
So from what I gather:
500 tris/128x128 ~ 1 day
1500 tris/512x512 ~ 1 week
How does time scale when you get up to more complex characters? Lets say 20,000 tris/w 2 2048x2048's for diffuse, normal, specular, etc? I understand that speed comes with experience, I'm just trying to set a reasonable benchmark with which to measure my own progress.
Well, personally I think of the old ship analogy.
It takes a boatyard a year to build a one hundred foot ship, and it takes that same boatyard one year and three months to build a 200 foot ship.
Probably not accurate because it's just a saying, but it makes its point. Once you have the workflow down, adding complexity to actual work is not a linear scale. 1500 tris does not take 3 times as long as 500, and 20,000 tris does not take 40 times as long as 500.
Most of my characters are in the 10-15K range. Right now I am doing a 45K character for a client who wants it built for a game engine, but for something other than using it in an actual game. I've perceived no huge difference in time. There is some for sure, but not huge. I mean, there's no point in using 45K's worth of tri's and huge maps if there is going to be no extra detail than a typical 15K model, but that amounts to maybe an extra week sculpting? That's not that much really.
Sigh. I underbid anyways. Not massively though.
Very complex assets with very low triangle budgets may even take more time than more generous budgets, because its going to take a lot of time to optimize a complex design and get it working with tight restraints.
So it all depends, I would never give a rate based on triangle count/texture resolution alone.
yeah the important note here is that the time it takes to make a model doesn't go up as the polycount does. the complexity of the model is what makes the time go up.
if someone wanted a set of pipes that looked photo-realistic and had 30k triangles, that's pretty easy and shouldn't take too long. if they want a mech with fully animateable flaps and jet boots and shit for 40k triangles... that will take a lot longer to make. not because it has more polygons but because it's way more complex.
base mesh: 5 days
sculpt: 11 days
game res mesh + UVs: 5 days
textures: 12 days
It can go faster or slower depending on the artist and the specs, but on average that's how it usually shakes out.
I generally have an hourly wage in mind, then charge them what my time estimate would be.
The needs and the tech can fluctuate drastically. Needing to pixel paint with a pencil tool with a 16-bit pallette on a 64x64 texture can be more time consuming than freely polypainting a 1024 texture.
No real hard fast rule for anything.
Wow that's quite an insight!
I usually get about 20 Business days which is about 4 weeks in studio.
2-3 days in Basemesh + Props (Assets Base)
8 days sculpting and detailing + hitting likeness etc
2 days retoppo and building game res mesh
~2 Days Baking Maps
5 days Texturing
of course those numbers are just approximates... since some things go faster or slower depending on the complexity...
heroes and boss monsters and more complex characters get more time of course...
While you're dropping knowledge bombs it would be great to hear what you've had for average times on other things, like an average complex current gen vehicle, or a first person weapon.
This!
this.
and with Disney it was a week and a half at most.
I'll keep it rough, but all current- and next-gen stuff I've been working on breaks down about like this... for only the modeling to final texture phase, characters are 4 - 6 weeks (sometimes 8), vehicles with interiors are 4 - 8 weeks, third person weapons are about 2 - 3 weeks, I haven't done first-person weapons but realistically I'd guess 3 - 4 weeks. And when I count weeks, I mean a five-day, 40-hour workweek. And I'm at the point now where I'm seeing characters and vehicles as being a nearly equal amount of effort.
I am a bit relieved to see that current-gen hero characters aren't getting knocked out in only a week. Jon's breakdown is more or less in line with my current pace, although I could use a lot more practice in the texture painting department.
+1 20days up woukd be one mighty complex character, though "nextgen" (as in ps4 xbone) realistic characters can ge quite complex pretty easy and usually start at around 3 working weeks (15 days).
those 50$ a day rates spund like pure horrorstories? usually even eastern european and asian outsource studios start at 200$ per artist, of course the artist doesn't get that much but why should an individual artist charge so muc less than an average chinese outsourcer? working for that rate is plain stupid, go work at a supermarket...