How much does it cost to hire a 3D animator for CGI work?

[fishquail]

I need to hire a 3D Studio Max animator to animate and render a realistic looking model of a car into a flying car for a commercial. -It shoudl look Just like what you would see in back to the future.

I need this person to take the model (which was already pre-built) of a futurisitc looking concept car and make it fly in and land. It needs to look pretty realistic altho if its only 95% realistic is fine. The total on screen time would be about 10 seconds. Most of that its just parked not moving.

Now I dont know anything about 3D CGI so I have some questions;

1) How hard is this to do?
2) How long would it take to do?
3) How much would it cost to hire someone to do it?

Thanks!

[surf]

does the camera move, or turn?
it is not so hard I think 1-2 days maximum.

[Rich Lee]

1.not terribly hard
2.more than 1-2 days
3. like everything else, it totaly depends. you could get some kids just graduating from some CGI schools to do it for hardly anything/nothin....or you could get a pro cg guy to do it for like 2500-5k a week...(divide that up by 5 and you will see the day rate)...could be less....could be a touch more.

i suggest you go to cgchannel.com or maybe cgtalk.com and post the job and see what you get.

[surf]

well it also depends on motion tracking and animating the virtual camera.

[Greggl]

I find its just as easy to approach this from the other direction as well... based on
what was said above, you can figure out what your budget can support and go
from there... I'd be in the $5000-6000 range right from the get go.

Turnaround would be 1-2 weeks.

[Sony FX1 User]

Ask ilm www.ilm.com

[Greggl]

Originally Posted by Sony FX1 User

Ask ilm www.ilm.com

Hehe... ILM shut down their commercial division like 6 years ago... so that wont
be of much use.

[Matt Grunau]

Unless you have someone helping out with lighting, texturing, and rendering (and which 3D Max engine is the best for this??) you can count on a one man job either looking bad with fast results, or looking decent with SLOOOOOWW results. Best bet would be to hire an effects house. Prolly save you a little money too, and definately gonna save time.

You are definately looking at more than a week. Hell, the render time alone at 30fps X 10 with all the Antialiasing, Reflections, Motion Blur, Radiosity, Refraction, and various image effects is gonna be massive. A kickass (home) system streamlined to the gills MIGHT be able to kick out a frame every 4-8 hours. Maybe.

[Greggl]

I donno about that.. all the freelancers I know, myself included, have renderfarms
at home.

The base model is already built. Rendering automobiles is now pretty much top
notch for all the renderers and becomes even easier if its not in a hard cyc, limbo
room set.

Wildcards are going to be source footage (if any), moving camera and the quality
of the source model.

[Matt Grunau]

Originally Posted by Greggl

I donno about that.. all the freelancers I know, myself included, have renderfarms
at home.

The base model is already built. Rendering automobiles is now pretty much top
notch for all the renderers and becomes even easier if its not in a hard cyc, limbo
room set.

Wildcards are going to be source footage (if any), moving camera and the quality
of the source model.

Good point.

What kind of systems do you have in your farm, and which app are you running? How long would 1 frame take with your setup, with all the extras on it?

As a lightwave user, when I think of rendertimes for photorealism, I get physically sick.