The correct way to do it
Although this may seem like “common sense” to most of you, from my experience I have discovered that there are actually very few clients that actually provide all the information needed to do a project, in a structured and complete manner.

Bellow I will try to lay out the guidelines of what would make an ideal info package (in my opinion, of course) in order to do an architectural visualization project from start to finish. Some of them

Camera view
This is probably one of the things that most clients skip when sending info to a freelancer. As I have mentioned in a previous article (How to ask for a quote), this part is most probably one of the most important. The reason for this is simple and obvious; in case of an exterior rendering for example, you don’t need to have the entire building modeled and mapped, but only the part that will be visible in the required view. Same thing goes for interior renderings.

I am not saying that the camera position should be pointed with 100% accuracy; I am saying that you should indicate it (on a cad file or a drawing, for example) to make sure that your partner will know what needs to be modeled. This way, the project will be finished sooner, and with a lower budget.

Basic modeling

a) For exteriors

-Exterior elevations, and floor plan(s).
If the building changes it’s shape a long it’s height (some floors have larger surfaces than others, or different perimeter shapes), than it is necessary to deliver all the floor plans. If not, just the ground plan should be enough.

-Sections
These are not always needed. However, if the building has some “special” elements, like an interior courtyard, and you need to show that in the rendering, than they are an absolute “must”.

b) For interiors
Usually, the basic modeling for interior renderings is easier to do, and require less information. A floor plan, and 1-2 elevations would do be enough in most cases. Sections are needed only if the space has some particularities (like extrusions, moldings, etc).

Materials

1) Photo reference
The first thing that I need to say here is that most of the time, only written indications regarding the materials is NOT enough. You need to provide as much photo reference as you can (remember that saying about a picture and 1000 words?). Why bother explaining textually all the properties of a material (shininess, color, transparency, reflectivity, etc.) when you can show a picture or two?
If you could provide correct and tileble textures it would be great for both you and for the one that’s doing the job than do so (this also depends on how you and your partner initially agreed upon, in the quoting phase)

2) Scale
Many seem not to take into consideration this step. Let’s assume that you have provided a texture of the brick, or a scan of a fabric material. It is very important that you indicate the REAL-life dimension of that sample, This way you won’t end up with 1m long bricks in the renderings. You might say that that could be corrected along the way, during the preliminary phases of the development of the project (which I will cover in a future article), but keep in mind that this won’t take you more than 10-20 minutes, while waiting for a revised rendering (for which you will still have to write comments) can take a lot more.

3) Which material goes where?
Obviously, for every material reference that you provide, you must be very specific regarding where it should be placed. This can be easily done, just by naming the file accordingly (ex. Living-chair-no1-seating.jpg)

Furniture, lighting fixtures and entourage elements
This can be a little tricky also. Besides photo reference and indication regarding placement, you will also have to provide the dimensions for each object, no matter if it’s a piece of furniture, a lighting fixture or a vase.

Lighting
Last but not least, don’t forget to specify the time of the day that the final rendering will need to show. I know that this may seem like common sense, but I have met a guy that didn’t mention that he wanted a night rendering until he has seen what was supposed to be the last preview before hitting the high res rendering.

Final conclusion
This may seem like a lot of work to do, and most probably you don’t have to much time on your hands, but keep in mind that if you don’t do this at the beginning, you will eventually have make a lot of corrections during the preliminary deadlines, so not only you will have to write all of this at some point, but also, the it will take more time for the project to be completed.

If you are the one doing the work, make sure you ask for all the info that I have written above, before starting; it will make things more productive for both you and your client.

Good luck!

When assigning a project it is crucial that you send all the necessary information to your partner, but at the same time, you don’t need to “crowd” your partner with tons of files that he may not actually need. I always “fight” with most of my clients about this, and from what I have heard, I am not the only one.

The wrong way to do it

A few months ago, we have been assigned with a project consisting of 7 interior renderings (a bathroom, a powder room, a kitchen, a living, a kitchen, a bedroom and a playroom)

As for information, we have received around 70 cad files, including all the building floor plans, from basement to the roof top, exterior elevations of the building, and tons of structural details. As you can see, most of these were not needed.

Regarding the furniture and the materials, we have received a bunch of images as reference, but without much indication regarding the precise placement of each one.

Needless to say that we lost a lot of time going through each file, in order to extract the info that we needed and make a list with what we had so far and what more we needed in order to do the job. And I forgot to mention that we also had some troubles identifying the correct interiors that we needed to do from those floor plans (since there were several types of bathrooms, living-rooms and bedrooms, and when we were initially approached for quoting on the project, we were given only hand sketches).

It may not seem like it, but this took a lot of time and several emails between us, our client and his client. Therefore, the starting of the project was delayed with about 2 weeks which inevitably brought to a deadline extension.

In conclusion, this was not a productive way to do it… I wasn’t happy because I have lost a lot of time analyzing unnecessary files, making lists, giving calls (activities that I could not ask to be paid for), my client was not happy because he was in the middle of it and his reputation in front of his client was shaking, and finally, his client wasn’t happy because he couldn’t receive the final renderings when he initially expected.

In the second part of this article I will try to cover all the details concerning the RIGHT WAY to assign a project.

Before assigning a project to a freelancer or a studio from over seas, it is obvious that you need to know how much you will be charged for it. You may have more contacts that you are considering to work with, and the estimated price may be an important factor in deciding who will your partner on that specific project.

Therefore, even if you don’t need to send out all the information that would be needed to complete a project, you still need to make sure that what you send will be enough for the freelancer/studio to estimate as accurately as possible how much time will he need to complete the job and how much he will charge you.

So what info do you need to reveal?

1) Information regarding the geometry and indication regarding the camera view
Things like dwg or pdf files for the shape of the exterior/interior everybody seem to send when asking for a quote. However, this should always be accompanied by some indication regarding the camera position from where the rendering will be taken.
Personally, I find it hard to understand why most people don’t send this, since it matters a hell of a lot. If only 2 elevations of a building or 2 walls of an interior should be visible in the final rendering(s), it means a lot less time is required to produce it.

2) Materials
If you are able to provide the “ready to use” textures, you need to mention it. Otherwise, the other part will assume that they need to prepare them (make tileable textures from multiple photo references) which will imply more time and higher costs.

Also, if some “special” or “unusual” types of materials will be required (ex. some kind of crystal, falling water, etc) you need to mention it too. This kind of stuff usually takes more time, and you need to be aware of that from the beginning.

3) Furniture and entourage elements
With regards to this point, you need to clarify from the beginning if the models that will be used to “fill up” the space could be taken from some 3d models collection (and if so, which one), or if it will be some custom modeling involved (in this case, you may want to show some photo reference of what will need to be modeled, in order to receive an accurate estimate).

4) Time of the day
If this is not mentioned, it normally implies that the rendering will be taken and midday (which usually is the easiest and most common way to do it). Dusk and night renderings, on the other hand are more difficult to do, require more attention, more time and higher costs.

5) Rendering size
This should be mentioned, especially if your requests are a little bit out of the ordinary. I don’t know if it is a “standard” or not, but 99% of the renderings that I have produced so far, were rendered at a size of an A4, 300 dpi. However, there are times, when I am asked to render huge sizes, such as 2 meters wide, at 150 dpi. I can assure you that no one likes to be taken by surprise with this kind of demand just before hitting the final rendering

The first thing that I need to say here might sound surprising (or even stupid) for some people, but unfortunately it’s true so I will say it anyway If you are a freelancer or you own a small architectural visualization studio, it is better not to be the one trying to contact people that can assign you projects , and especially, NOT by email.

I know that everybody tried this at some point (including me) but I haven’t heard of anyone having good results with it. The reason is simple: architectural visualization companies, especially the ones located in North America and Western Europe receive tons of emails like that; NOBODY reads them anymore!
Further more, many consider this to be sp@m (although in my opinion it can not be labeled like that). Others don’t fully understand the concept of outsourcing and they will think that you are trying “to sell snow to the Eskimos”.

You may consider contacting a potential partner ONLY if that specific company (or person) has placed and ad somewhere on the web, expressing his wish to find people from abroad to work with, otherwise, it is better to wait for them to contact you.

Ok, so how will the clients find you?

1) Forums

The best places where you can get noticed are by far, the public forums.
It is better to stay active on as many forums as you can, but that can be really time consuming so eventually you will have to set some priorities. You don’t have to choose based only on how much traffic they receive, but also on how related they are to your niche. For example, if you are an architectural illustrator, Cgarchitect.com, evermotion.org and 3dallusions.com are the places for you, while if you are a 3d generalist you may find that cgsociety forum is the best option.

a) Posting
Many people just settle for posting on “final work” sections of these forums. While this certainly helps you can do more. If you want to get noticed, you need be active in the “wip sections” as well. Potential clients are interest not only in your final product, but also they want to see how well you respond to criticism, how fast do you work, how receptive you are to comments and how well you implement them in the rendering.

Another thing that you must do is to post comments on other people work as well. Keep in mind that comments like “Great work! Share the settings!” or “fantastic” don’t help much with regards to this. You have to pay attention to all the details and write smart criticism in order be noticed. Be careful not to be rude, or criticize when it’s not the case; just be nice and say what you think would help improve that particular work in a polite manner.

b) Make friends
Try to engage in discussions (even off-topic), be a part of the community and eventually make friends. You may be offered work from people that you talk with every day, or if not, there is a chance that they would recommend you to somebody else (just don’t be a pest and bug them with your offers). Believe me, the word of mouth is very powerful when it comes to making a name in this business.

c) Job sections
If the forum that you are familiar with has a job section, than that is the place for you to let everyone know that you are available for work. I have seen many trying to “poison” somebody else’s thread, in a totally inappropriate section with messages like “Hello! We are a professional architectural visualization studio from xxxx and we do great renderings for low prices!!!”. If you try something like this, you better pray that a moderator deletes your post asap, otherwise people may remember you as “the sp@mmer” and avoid you, even if they may actually need the kind of service that you provide.

2) Your website
A professionally designed website can make all the difference, so if you are not a web-designer, I strongly suggest that you hire someone to do it.
Think of it as your showroom or a shop; clients won’t even enter a location that looks like a cottage therefore they won’t have the chance to see if there are Armani suits on sale there.
Furthermore, a website designed with SEO in mind, can bring you organic traffic (via search engines) so you can benefit from more exposure without actually working too much for it.
Last but not least, your website is like your business card. You may place your url in the signature on forums and every time you make a post, you will leave your “business card” for hundreds or even thousands of potential clients to see.

3) Online portfolios and image galleries
There are a lot of those on the internet, starting with portfolio sites like Coroflot, to all major portals, forums and sites that host image galleries and contact details of the authors. Needless to say that you need to submit your best renderings to as many of those as you can.

4) Guru.com, Ifreelance.com and other similar sites
Sites like these are a great place, especially for freelancers/studios that are at the beginning of their online working adventure and don’t have a solid portfolio of clients yet. Personally I didn’t use this type of services, but I have heard from some friends that did, that they had good results.

5) Commenting on blogs
Similar to posting on forums, posting on blogs can get you noticed. As opposed to forums (where you have to put a link to your site in the signature), on blogs you automatically receive a link to your website, anchored to a name that specified by you. From my experience, the click-through rate on blogs is higher than for signatures on forums.

6) Advertising campaigns
Last but not least, it might be a good idea to invest some money in advertising campaigns. Banners on popular sites can be quite expensive, but you have other options (like google adwords, for example) that can be a lot cheaper and very effective.
This is a plus in gaining potential client’s trust because, by investing some money in making yourself known, it proves that you are serious about what you are doing.

Final advice
If you are really new in this business and you have no experience when it comes dealing with clients, than you’d better start working with some local clients before targeting the foreign ones. This is the only way of actually learning how to handle a project, not only in terms of execution, but also taking care of issues that concern project management and communicating with clients.

That’s about it for now; if you feel like I have missed something, feel free to add your input by using the comments form bellow.