[rusteberg]

Too slow, I saw it.

nahhh.... better take that off of there...

good. glad you did.

i continued working on that model even after i had sold it to them (and before i sold it to them totaling several months worth of contract) because my service was more reliable and credit worthy than the company they sent it off to. i held that company's business for years until i grew tired of their politics and rejoiced when i got a call saying they had hired another consultant full time. (i had already lost their business once during the course of a year when they had tried hiring an agency out of argentina, then china and found out it caused more delay than it was worth based on the way they operate)

several years ago i had a meeting with the head of a real estate brokerage firm i had been consulting for that wanted me to work for them at their corporate office. he was a real scum bag. i didn't like him from the start of the meeting and i was inclined to believe that he/they wanted to hire me to train the 3d team they already had employed but was in decline. but i politely refused his offer to hire me and never laid a number on the table, insisting that they call me in the future should they need any of my services. they stopped calling me for a while then all of a sudden started sending their clients over one by one for renderings. this is the same place i cold called years ago only to be turned down because i couldn't provide renderings for $50 (fifty U.S. dollars)

i used to make cold calls like crazy when i first started out on my own. one day i received a call from a global company i had left a message with that had a local office where i live. i was asked to be prepared to give a presentation to a board of architects and project managers. i showed up nervous as hell only to find myself sitting in a gigantic board room with the head of their 3d department going over my portfolio. we shook hands and i was told i would hear from them soon. 3 years later i received a call from a new office they had opened needing 3d consultant work. the outcome led to me being able to consult with several other regional offices of this company.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that hard work pays off with time, relationships matter most, and some people just aren’t worth dealing with.

once you understand this, the cost of a scene file becomes unquestionable....

best of luck.

[Michael Betke]

Why not telling them a high price so they don't take the scene file or if its so important for them they would pay. Also remove all third party stuff from 3d collections you may have used and not allowed to re-sale.

A friend of mine did it some years ago. He was asked to render a simple bottle of wine - not more than 2 hours of work for him. He wasn't in the mood so he told them them it would cost 1000€. They payed for it without a comment....

Better is to give them a discount of further renderings out of this scene maybe instead of selling it. I do it sometimes. It keeps cash flowing and people come back.

[w i l l]

Problem is that I'm working through an agency - so they deal with the costs. And it makes things more complicated as having a middle man always does... or being at the end of the chain, which I usually am. Anyway not a problem, I assumed that no one else would give away their scene files as well but needed to check.

Why not telling them a high price so they don't take the scene file or if its so important for them they would pay. Also remove all third party stuff from 3d collections you may have used and not allowed to re-sale.

A friend of mine did it some years ago. He was asked to render a simple bottle of wine - not more than 2 hours of work for him. He wasn't in the mood so he told them them it would cost 1000€. They payed for it without a comment....

Better is to give them a discount of further renderings out of this scene maybe instead of selling it. I do it sometimes. It keeps cash flowing and people come back.

[w i l l]

I've spoken to a couple of designers about this also but if anyone has any views on the cost of a product design Solidworks model (showing all history) then I'd be interested to hear. This to me is comparable to a scene file as the client could take this model (with history and not so obvious methods of producing a complex surface model) and hand it over to someone else to continue with the development. I'd be happy to give away an IGES model (no history) but not Solidworks output.

Again maybe I should have made this clear at the start - that scene files and Solidworks models are not owned by the client. They own the 'technology' so does this mean that they own the file? I suppose in court it could be argued that they do... but then according to that they also own my software!

It also states in this huge agreement that I should 'hold harmless' their company against any claim in court. Sometimes these agreements are so ridiculous that if you'd paid proper attention to them and really got picky then no job would start.

PS I didn't sign this agreement anyway - the middle man did before letting me know it even existed.

[w i l l]

Aaaaarrgh I'm now being asked for the Solidworks file! So they can make changes.

[Michael Betke]

Thats one reason why I work without an contracts usually and never got a problem with it working with trust.
Anyway if you dont want to give it tell them there is copyright material like from any model collection in it so you would breach a license aggreement on your own passing your source files further. this should help. if not delete lots of models so they would need additional ressources to get it into a usuable state.

[w i l l]

There is no copyright material within a Solidworks file!

Thats one reason why I work without an contracts usually and never got a problem with it working with trust.
Anyway if you dont want to give it tell them there is copyright material like from any model collection in it so you would breach a license aggreement on your own passing your source files further. this should help. if not delete lots of models so they would need additional ressources to get it into a usuable state.

[w i l l]

Just had an idea.

Save Solidworks file as IGES. Open IGES and save as Solidworks file. With no history. (don't know of another way of saving a Solidworks file without history).

[yolk]

we do this too sometimes. step or parasolid often works better - export and reimport and save as a dumb solidworks file.