40 – How to Price 3D Visualization

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How much does 3D visualization cost? Well, that’s a good question.

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Civil FX Update

  • Working on a freeway overpass and a solar study for a power company
  • 2nd visualization challenge ends on Sunday but I will give you until Monday to get your in
  • I already have two submissions and may focus next weeks episode on that type of visualization
  • Visit www.civilfx.com/vc if you want to participate in this free challenge
How to Price 3D Visualization
  • When I first knew I wanted to start a visualization studio I was more worried about how to price it than anything
  • I obviously can’t give exact numbers but I can give some rules of thumb that will help you if you are looking to offer or pay for visualization services
  • You can break your costs down into three categories: labor, lump sum items and rendering time
  • Labor is the hours that will be needed to accomplish the project and include CAD work, modeling (all types), animating, texturing, video editing and so on
  • Lump sum are the costs associated with the project that aren’t necessarily hourly labor like digital purchases, travel, software and hardware
  • Render time is simply the time needed for your computer or render farm to render the frames of your videos (or still render) and is usually a fraction of your hourly rate
Rules of thumb on pricing
  • The questions “how much does 3d visualization cost” still isn’t an easy one to answer
  • Imagine telling an artist to make a beautiful picture and you can start to understand that projects related to art will take as long as they need to to look right
  • Visualization is both art and design so it is tough to gauge how many hours it may take to get it just right
  • Very few projects are in the ‘three figures’ range and very few projects are in the ‘six figures range’. Most fall in the four or five figure range.
  • Civil FX Studios and other specialty firms can offer lower prices for similar quality than national engineering firms because we specialize and have low overhead
  • This episode is intentially vague so that I don’t artificially set expectations, but if you have specific questions about cost, email me sam@civilfx.com