United3dArtists Archive

Good Morning everyone,
I am an Italian 3D artist, and I'm trying to price my high quality 3D animations: the request of my client is so specific that I can't seem to find a good and honest price, and I thought that you could give me a tip. The client asked for 50 videos of a product animation of 50 faucets: they want the same lighting, context and camera movement for every video, the only thing that has to change is the material and the faucet. How could I price something like that?
I know that it seems a strange request, but I am pretty lost.
Thank you for readig this, and have a good day!

I would try to think of the time spent and calculate with hourly cost of my time usually. You can start/test it to see how fast its gonna go for you. You dont want to spend ton of time on that for little money.

There's a few ways on how to calculate the cost of any project.

Cost per Hour
Cost per project

Cost per hour.
First you need to calculate how much time you will spend on this project modeling, texturing, animating... not rendering..

Calculate how many hours of your time you will need to create such product. lets say 14 hours. *Not sure how good are you calculating how many hours you need, but at the beginning you may need to add some extra 10% just in case.

So now you know you need 16hs to create the animation not rendering.
The cost of your time will depend on the cost of life where you live.. Thats why Call centers are located in india.

Now try to calculate how much time you will need to render that animation.. Real time? Render in hours? Days??
so that cost will depend on the cost of electricity and the time you use your computer to do that task.. Try to find a cost to that too
an animation that is rendered in real time will cost less than another that takes you 1 week.. but speed is also a value that can be monetized.. Is not the same have the animation in 1 week or in 3 months.. have in mind that..

And if the animation is the same, you should only charge the cost of rendering multiplied by 50 also will give you some idea about how much time the whole project will take.

After all, add your revenue.. because now they are only paying for your time and electricity, you are not winning money.. anything between 20 to 50% is fair..

Cost per project, will depend of the kind of work..
Imagine you need to render a falling cube for someone.. will cost maybe.. 50 bucks.
but if Paramount Pictures ask you to do the same, maybe you can charge them a fair 400 bucks. But be sure that cube is the most beautiful ever!!

At the end it depends on you that final number if its to low, high or its a fair price but now you have an idea. Arrivederci!