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