[markps]

Hi All,

I just got an animation gig and I would like a little help on figuring out how much to charge for it.

Here are the details..

It is a 4 minutes animation for a company's internal reel rendered directly from 3D Studio. The goal of this video is to describes the factory's automation process. (moving bottles on a conveyor belt, etc) The quality won't be "that" great. It will be just illustrative and mostly technical. The video will have 8 scenes and the target format will be for an NTSC screen size at around 18 FPS

The 3D Scene is mostly done so the scope of the work is mostly texturing, animation and rendering.

The client is expecting it in 6 months so, no rush. I just have no clue how much to charge for it, any ideas?

Your input is highly appreciated.
-Mark

[vandigital]

Hi All,

I just got an animation gig and I would like a little help on figuring out how much to charge for it.

Here are the details..

It is a 4 minutes animation for a company's internal reel rendered directly from 3D Studio. The goal of this video is to describes the factory's automation process. (moving bottles on a conveyor belt, etc) The quality won't be "that" great. It will be just illustrative and mostly technical. The video will have 8 scenes and the target format will be for an NTSC screen size at around 18 FPS

The 3D Scene is mostly done so the scope of the work is mostly texturing, animation and rendering.

The client is expecting it in 6 months so, no rush. I just have no clue how much to charge for it, any ideas?

Your input is highly appreciated.
-Mark

Just charge per hour... if you think its going to take you 40 man hours the 40*yourrate... if you think you will need outside resources like purchased models, or textures add those in as well. Finally if its an animtation you need to figure out how much time it will take to render if its 40 seconds of animtation then your looking at 720 frames at 18 frames per second. And say each frame will take 5 minutes to render thats about 300 hours of render time. SO you need to take figures to a render farm and calculate how much it will charge for that amount of animation. And include that in your qoute as well. Since you have a pretty long time until the deadline I would render it locally if you have another computer and still charge what a renderfarm company would charge. That way if you dont have to use them, you get a nice fat bonus at the end . Thats just me though if they dont have the budget though then dont push it just cut it out if you can do it at home .

[markps]

Just charge per hour... if you think its going to take you 40 man hours the 40*yourrate... if you think you will need outside resources like purchased models, or textures add those in as well. Finally if its an animtation you need to figure out how much time it will take to render if its 40 seconds of animtation then your looking at 720 frames at 18 frames per second. And say each frame will take 5 minutes to render thats about 300 hours of render time. SO you need to take figures to a render farm and calculate how much it will charge for that amount of animation. And include that in your qoute as well. Since you have a pretty long time until the deadline I would render it locally if you have another computer and still charge what a renderfarm company would charge. That way if you dont have to use them, you get a nice fat bonus at the end . Thats just me though if they dont have the budget though then dont push it just cut it out if you can do it at home .

Thanks Vandigital,

Yes I'm in a tough spot because the client wants a closed quote for the project. I have free access to a render farm so rendering won't be a big deal. I just need to pick a random price for it. That's the tough part since I have no point of reference. :-/

[ivox3]

The client is expecting it in 6 months so, no rush.

You better start now.
That's not as much time as it sounds --- say you get to 150 hours in the process (that's rendered hours) and something is wrong or needs a change? Hash those details out now and get it LOCKED down w/the client as to what is precisely needed. No open doors.

Vandigital has the right idea -- I'd take his method and tack on 30% without batting an eyelash. If they flinch then I would negotiate down no more than 10% ---- I will certainly guarantee you deep regret and stress if the price starts off too low.

#1 Rule: Don't ever ever ever say to yourself -- this is going to be easy.

#2 Rule: Assume it will be the hardest thing you'll ever do. Prepare for that scenario. If things go well, ..your golden, ..if they go south, ..your covered by the pricing. (at least to some degree).

#3 Rule: If you can't negotiate to the above pricing --- walk away. If you can't afford to walk away, ...then I would say you should run because taking a project that has tight margins when you yourself have tight margins is a disaster in the making. Reason being, it means everything has to go perfect and really, ..when exactly does that happen ?

I'm not being alarmist or negative here --- just trying to convey the idea of protecting yourself. That is all.

Good luck.

ps. Once you've estimated your scene and animation hours ---- don't forget to add time for all the babysitting hours during the rendering/batch process. It doesn't do it by itself (especially if you opt to do it on your own machine(s). .....and don't forget the encoding.

[glebe digital]

Yeah the 'six month thing' would raise alarm bells here too.........too much time for your client to have a change of heart, or want something else........

[markps]

Guys, thanks for all your help!

[itsallgoode9]

how did the quote go, did you get the job? i'm interested to hear

[Brett Morgan]

I have just had the same thing, did 3 external renderings for a client, they took about 7-8 hours each, now he wants an animation.Not really feasible to render an animation in maxwell for my 1 horse render farm, it would have been about $7500 US on a render farm.I have a dual quad xeon (so 8 processors) I used render rocket a while back and they were charging $1.50/hour per processor on their farm, so that's how I have been calculating the render component for each job, is that steep, I mean $12/hour to have my 5k renderbox sitting there sounding like a vacuum cleaner.The client seems adamant to animate this job (there is some animation involving lovres aswell), he wants 10 seconds of animation.From the start I have been pushing to animate with a much simpler scene, I have spent 20+ hours trying to get the render time down to under an hour/frame in modo, and it aint working.The max he wants to spend is $1500, for me having my machine screraming its guts off for several weeks just isnt worth it for that, anyone got a suggestion? I sent him an email and said I dont think its doable with that budget,never done an animation job before and he's a repeat customer so I'm dont want to charge him like a wounded bull, anyone have any tips for charging for animation? I have been thinking it would have been better to work out something that he can afford with his budget in mind but...

Brett

[Hervé]

$7,500

[Brett Morgan]

$7,500

Herve I dont get it

Brett

[Hervé]

This is how much I would ask... simple.. I never justify anything to clients.. why should I...? when you buy a Champagne bottle, there is a price, they don't have to tell you how much for the bottle.. how much for the cork..

Off course, It is a bit different when you buy a construction, like a kitchen installation.. there off course you need to know the different parts..

.. but in the case of non-tangible goods.. I don't see the point.. and too much detailing always brings questions... and often they start discussing.. (wow, how much the setup..? ... wow, the modeling is expensive... blah blah blah.. )

... so this is how much I would charge if I had to render it from let's say LW... Now for Maxwell, If I use a render farm.. the client pays the render farm directly... and my work directly to me.. voila... (unless I render myself, I never over-charge a Maxwell render by adding my %, ... hehe..)

This is how I proceed.. but that maybe just me..

(advice, the more you go in details, the less confidence you show.. trust me on that.. the nicest "gigs" I made was with a single price in the face.. take it.. or leave it.. )

Voilà
H.

[Brett Morgan]

Yeah sounds like a good plan, after all you have what the client wants right!

Brett

[Hervé]

true story :

a future client e-mail asking a quote for a job..
I replied with a price
ex-future client said.. wow.. no way.. budget too small.... can you maybe.... blah blah..
me : nope
them : too bad

one month later

ex-future client e-mail back : ok, finally we have the budget you asked for..
me : well sorry prices have jumped lately.. 20% added..
them : ah.. ok then..

SWIM..?

I've worked in the past for a larger Ad agency, you'd be amazed of how they quote... hihi..

[Brett Morgan]

You gotta pay the bills too, its good when it works out in your favour

Brett

[Hervé]

sure one got to pay the bills, but nothing proves that detailing will do it... in Fact I sometimes see "detailing" like "justifying"..

in the case above, detailing would have give the same result..

If I ask for a quote to a company, I am looking first at the total.. if it's what I expected, I don't even go to detail.. and if it's too expensive, detail or not.. I don't buy it..