What would this cost roughly?

gep5

I just want to get a rough idea of what I can expect to pay for a from scratch 3d character model for a blender project. That would be modelling, texturing and then rigging to an AAA standard.

I want someone to recreate Shelob for me from Middle-earth: Shadow of War in her human form, recreating her model from that game as closely as possible. I think this youtube video gives good reference material.

https://youtu.be/xhBn2afZn5Q

I am aware that to recreate the original model from scratch would be a large undertaking, but I am willing to pay generously for this.

I posted this in the genral section first as I would like to know what a reasonble paymenet for this would be. Ideally, it would be 50% upfront and 50% after completion.

Cheers

SnowInChina

AAA isn't really enough of an description for an estimate

AAA could mean for a game like civilisation, diablo3 or witcher, and it could be intended for a nintendo switch, playstation or pc

just to give some examples

gep5

SnowInChina said:

AAA isn't really enough of an description for an estimate

AAA could mean for a game like civilisation, diablo3 or witcher, and it could be intended for a nintendo switch, playstation or pc

just to give some examples

It would be intended for the PC and used in Belnder. quality wise I want it to match the origional game models as closely as possible. There is an example (of one of the other character models of the game) on deviant art.

https://www.deviantart.com/crazy31139/art/Middle-earth-Shadow-of-Mordor-Lithariel-725893591

Apologies for the vauguness.

gep5

gep5 said:

SnowInChina said:

AAA isn't really enough of an description for an estimate

AAA could mean for a game like civilisation, diablo3 or witcher, and it could be intended for a nintendo switch, playstation or pc

just to give some examples

It would be intended for the PC and used in Belnder. quality wise I want it to match the origional game models as closely as possible. There is an example (of one of the other character models of the game) on deviant art.

https://www.deviantart.com/crazy31139/art/Middle-earth-Shadow-of-Mordor-Lithariel-725893591

Apologies for the vauguness.

Whoops, that last example on DA from the first game, not the second. Here is a correct example of the kind of thing I'm looking for

https://www.deviantart.com/tselman61/art/Middle-earth-Shadow-of-War-Eltariel-763446399

2K textures with good detailing (you can clearly see facial pores etc) and a total poly count of about 35,000 verts and 57,000 faces.

EarthQuake

You're looking at about 20-30 days of work. 15 days for modeling/uvs/bakes, 5 days for texturing, another 5 for rigging. That's a very rough estimate, the time will vary depending on the speed of the artist, the complexity of the asset (materials, rigging, etc), and the expected quality. A professional freelance character artist from the US or Europe will start in the $400 a day ($50 an hour) range and go up depending on how good/experienced they are. So $8,000-12,000 would be a ballpark figure. Rates for artists from Asian countries may be a bit less.

You could look for a less experienced / cheaper artist, but be prepared for it to take more time, more direction, and cleanup. The reference model you linked to in your last post isn't of very good quality, so if you're not too picky you may be able to find a student or hobbyist artist to do the work, but you should expect it to cost at least $5,000 even then.

If this is for a hobby project you may be better off buying a model from Turbosquid or some other service that sells prefab meshes.

Ashervisalis

I would post this in the Freelance portion of the forum, and ask for quotes to be PM'd or emailed to you.

https://polycount.com/categories/freelance-job-postings

gep5

EarthQuake said:

You're looking at about 20-30 days of work. 15 days for modeling/uvs/bakes, 5 days for texturing, another 5 for rigging. That's a very rough estimate, the time will vary depending on the speed of the artist, the complexity of the asset (materials, rigging, etc), and the expected quality. A professional freelance character artist from the US or Europe will start in the $400 a day ($50 an hour) range and go up depending on how good/experienced they are. So $8,000-12,000 would be a ballpark figure. Rates for artists from Asian countries may be a bit less.

You could look for a less experienced / cheaper artist, but be prepared for it to take more time, more direction, and cleanup. The reference model you linked to in your last post isn't of very good quality, so if you're not too picky you may be able to find a student or hobbyist artist to do the work, but you should expect it to cost at least $5,000 even then.

If this is for a hobby project you may be better off buying a model from Turbosquid or some other service that sells prefab meshes.

Cheers

gep5

EarthQuake said:

You're looking at about 20-30 days of work. 15 days for modeling/uvs/bakes, 5 days for texturing, another 5 for rigging. That's a very rough estimate, the time will vary depending on the speed of the artist, the complexity of the asset (materials, rigging, etc), and the expected quality. A professional freelance character artist from the US or Europe will start in the $400 a day ($50 an hour) range and go up depending on how good/experienced they are. So $8,000-12,000 would be a ballpark figure. Rates for artists from Asian countries may be a bit less.

You could look for a less experienced / cheaper artist, but be prepared for it to take more time, more direction, and cleanup. The reference model you linked to in your last post isn't of very good quality, so if you're not too picky you may be able to find a student or hobbyist artist to do the work, but you should expect it to cost at least $5,000 even then.

If this is for a hobby project you may be better off buying a model from Turbosquid or some other service that sells prefab meshes.

Thanks, I'll have a think.

FrankPolygon

Have to second what Earthquake said. The question is how much is your budget and how close to AAA quality is good enough?

If you can afford somewhere between $1,000-2,000 you might be able to get close enough for a hobby project. There's a new outsourcing site / studio called CG Hero and they have a large number of freelancers at varying skill levels and price points. General character development pricing and past work examples are available on their character service page: https://cghero.com/services/character-3d-modeling

Alternately you could try posting the job on their job board and see what kind of bids come in from their freelancer pool. Responses are usually pretty fast.

gep5

A slight side topic, but how much would a basic rig cost for a 3d model? That would include hair, toe and fingers bones as well as a face rig for making basic expressions (blink, squint sneer, smile etc.) I wouldn't want many bones for the facerig, just enough so that I could control the face effectively. Ideally, there would be bones for the eyelids, 2 for the lower lids and 2 for the upper lids.

As long as the rigging is of high quality, I'm happy for a relatively basic rig. 

Aside from the rigging/skeleton creation, the models I'd want doing are all ready to go.

For clarity, this is completely separate from the Shelob project.

Thanks again.

oglu

A basic rig plus weights could be done in two or three days.