what should i charge?

Olli.

Yesterday i was approached via email by a guy who is producing an insert for the national public-broadcasting company (think BBC except less international). He had seen a model of an RK-62 i had made on crydev.net, and he asked if i could render him some footage of it so he can use it in his insert.

The problem is he asked me to provide an estimate of how much i should charge him for the work, and I've never done any 3D stuff for money before so i really have absolutely no idea what to charge.. Quite honestly I'd be happy to do it for free (i mean cmon i'd get my model on national television ) but i dont have a job and i need all the money i can get so id rather not let this chance go.. then again since i know nothing about this, im afraid i might say some ridiculously high amount and turn him away..

so, im sure there are a lot of people who have done commercial stuff in 3d, can some of you recommend a price range?


almost forgot: what he asked me to render was a 360 spin view of the weapon, a scrolling marquee type view of the weapon, and also some play footage kind of like in this video:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OJ2Dm-RHIM"]RK-62 Crysis 2 - YouTube[/ame]
except with an alpha channel, so it can be inserted in to AE

The weapon is just a game-ready mesh with diff/spec/gloss/norms which i made as a personal project for the crydev community, and making these videos probably wont take me long (except for the last play video, since i might have to rig some new arms because i doubt they want to have the nanosuit in the tv programme lol)

Neox

how long did it take you to create? how much money per hour do you think it is worth? multiply those 2 and you have a value, now you could say "hey this gives me a lot of publicity and maybe other jobs come in because of that" and therefore give him a discount, or he wants to use it in a lot of different media so you charge a extra fee per media if you want to - there is no "this costs that much" it highly depends on where you live, if you need the money and so on.

ikken

http://www.jessicahische.is/obsessedwiththeinternet/andhelpingyougetpaid/the-dark-art-of-pricing

long read, but a good one.

I don't really like that he didn't give an estimate himself, but considering he's coming from a TV background where advertising money flows in and shows generally have a set budget, you should make your guess and add some extra to it.
if you're receiving an instant agreement, you've shot too low;
and make sure you outline all possible uses of your footage and give him a written permission clearly stating various usage scenario, as Neox said.
"publicity" per se is good, but how many people exactly will know it's your model and how many of those will happen to contact you later.

Eric Chadwick

Good advice

Also, check the last three links here in the Salary Research section
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryGameIndustry#Salary_Research

MagicSugar

Olli. wrote: »

Y can some of you recommend a price range?

You can check out what turbosquid prices are for similar models (polycounts, textured or not, etc.), in sites like odesk, what low bidders are offering (I'm not recommending odesk but maybe you can find somebody from your country who's offering 3d services and see if their prices matches your expectatiions).

And you can split your cost-to-produce this way:

number of render passes
hd or not
length of footage
cost to license your model (just in case they request model file)
cost of your time, machine time, "service fees and taxes, whatever applies"
revision cost(s)

You don't have to dump this list to the potential client but just for you to think about.

Get money upfront as much as possible. A "deposit".

JacqueChoi

BTW.

Charge less than some of these write-ups, because you 'own' the asset.

They're just licensing it for this one use, but in the future you have the rights to license it again.


It doesn't sound like they want the model, it just sounds like they want a shot of the model. Pretty big difference.

osman

And when you do find out how much you're charging, could you let us know. If you don't want to make it public, could you PM it to me. I'm working on a prototype with a studio, and I might have some work for you.

Eric Chadwick

The animations are Crytek's, correct? You will need to either get permission to use the animations for paid broadcast work, or recreate the animations yourself. You can't expect Crytek to be happy about you making money with their art (animation). You could get legal action from them, and so could your client.

Also make sure you get a signed contract from your client. Clients always sound great in the early stages, but sometimes you'll get screwed later or not paid for your work or whatever, that's where the contract helps you.

Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines
Essential reading for any freelance artist!

Blaizer

Beware of the bad clients Olli., they are easy to discover. As european, i can say you the lower rate per day in Spain as freelancer is 250 euros as a junior, 30€ per hour. There are also tables with range of prices for the different kind of jobs like illustration for a cover magazine, for advertising, etc.

A good client will start contacting you because he needs your service, offering in first instance an aproximation of their budget and asking your availability and how much you will charge, the kind of project, the amount of work, specs, and all the info you may need to know such as time schedule and deadlines, etc.

Good luck!

Joshua Stubbles

Closing this out. We have more than enough of these threads, please use the search function!