Who says clients don't pay for modeling?

[louis]

I'm working on a project now that an architect known for doing residential design was hired to design the project. Guess what software he uses to draw with. Does he provide any modeling services? No. The contractor who is doing the remodeling project is a design build contractor. Guess what software he uses. The client knows that the contractor models all of his projects. So the contractor has been hired to do the building and do the modeling of the project that the architect is designing. This is where I come in I'm doing all of the modeling. My point is, there is a market for modeling and the market is getting bigger every day.

[mcqueenhomes]

Thanks for the encouraging word, Louis.
I do Chief modeling almost exclusively and yes they do pay me for it.
In fact, I have one to do today for a builder... full renderings and VRML!
Sometimes they give me CAD and sometimes they even want me to finish a Chief model they started!

[slatta]

i do, but its my own fault, I won't work for architects and the builders I work with pretty much just want the building permit stuff, so thats my market..

renderings???? sometimes i have shown them on screen to get the wow, and now sometimes, they ask to see the 3d, how do I turn that into billable time???

[mcqueenhomes]

I charge by the hour for everything. I don't show them anything on screen because for most clients of mine that would require plane tickets. I do work for architects, but very seldom... they like to do it themselves.

[gergman7]

I agree their is getting to be a very big market for this. I have noticed it isn't necessarily that the builders or contractors want it but because some companies are beginning to offer it and clients really like seeing it that many more are looking into the option to compete with the others. Which is great news for us.

[louis]

i do, but its my own fault, I won't work for architects and the builders I work with pretty much just want the building permit stuff, so thats my market..

Neal,

I think you hit the nail on the head. I think we attract the kind of work we want to attract. If I wanted production work I could attract production work. We have worked on attracting more custom plan work and there is definitely a market for modeling in the custom market.

[mcqueenhomes]

I get jobs for both custom and production... I've even provided renderings of exterior shell models for a modular home builder! With Chief you can do 3 or 4 modular shell renderings a day!

[gpickren]

I think the issue is whether your clients are wholesale (i.e. architects and builders) or the owners. If wholesale, renderings are an extra that comes out of the fee.

Basically architects view them as a necessary evil that the occasional owner or planning commission may require, but do not consider them to be part of their standard design package. They do often provide a artfully done, hand-colored perpective which they like to prepare as an artiistic expresssion. When the subject of 3D renderings comes up, the architects say, "I don't get many requests for that?" Of course not, he does not present the possibility.

Some builders appreciate 3D models and renderings as a sales tool for a spec house.

Neither of consider 3D modeling to be the reason the client chooses you in the first place. That is the way to charge for models -- make it a key integral part of the design process. For most homeowners the 3D model and renderings ARE the plans. Almost everything else is totally meaningless. They go through the process and end of with a set of plans to bid out, yet most don't know what the building will really cost, nor do they have any real idea of what it will look like in real life.

I spent thirty years financing real estate, the last seven devoted primarily to financing custom homes and major remodels. Over half the people who came in with plans could not afford to build what they had designed. I had a big barrel full of plans with a label on the side that said, "The Million Dollar Round File." That is because I had plans that owners paid a million dolllars for but could not build in that file. Pretty expensive art work.

I also had a "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" folder which showed a collection of remodels ranging from great looking to hideous. I wondered "do homeowners really have so little taste." Well, a few are lacking, but most simply had no idea what the addition would actually look like and a 2D elevation can be very deceiving.

So I simply ask if the client would like to purchase his home sight unseen or be able to tour his home while it is in the process of being designed. Give them a test. Let them try to read a set of regular plans and spot some hideous design flaws from the elevation. Then, show them how you do it. Are the schematics an extra? Chief's renderrings are the schematics.

Here's a photo from the "Good, Bad and Ugly " file. You decide which and why.

[gpickren]

Here's an elevation

[gpickren]

So then you show them how a 2D drawing does not reveal things like a dark entry set back 24' from the front of the house with opposing overhangs that leave less than three feet of daylight overhead.

The 3D model reveals all this, so we show them how to avoid the problem by bringing the entry forward, raising it to bring it light, etc. Keep in mind that you are looking at a house that will sell for over $600,000 in the fantasy world of Southern California and in a fair to average neighborhood.

So I would submit to you that you do not sell 3D modeling to your clients. Use 3D modeling to sell you. With 3D, what you see is what you get.

[Niuoka]

growing up around my dad in the "olden days" modeling ment models. that you could pick up, take the roof off, etc. we still have some project models around
one archi in town still does it, and it is impressive
thats what I thought you guys ment
but looks like what you are calling modeling is rendering

[gpickren]

The olden days are still here for many. For a comparison of just what you describe check this thread at the bottom.

I find a foamboard model to be an interesting craft exercise, especially if you printed the patterns with Chief, but I really question the value compared to a 3D model. It may be semantics and I am sure of the proper term but I would not equate rendering with modeling. I create a model (3D digital model) in order that I may render it (3D view with or without ray tracing, etc.) Chief does most of the modeling for us, especially on simple designs. Rendering is like photographing a real house. It is all about liighting, especially the interior shots. A cardboard doll house doesn't do much for me and I think this is where the concept of being able to charge for modeling came from. The architects have equated it to 3D design because most of them still think in terms of 2D production. In my experience the architects here using Chief are in the significant minority.

Most residential architects in Calfornia are still hand drawing their plans and prefer it. It is the artist mentality. They do not embrace technology and many feel that their artistic expression is limited by stock symbol components. True enough, but the contractor who has to actually build the house is pretty well limited by stock building components and one of the reasons for groken budgets is ignoring this.

http://www.chiefarchitect.com/chieft...threadid=10810

[Chris M]

Originally posted by gpickren
The olden days are still here for many. For a comparison of just what you describe check this thread at the bottom.

I find a foamboard model to be an interesting craft exercise, especially if you printed the patterns with Chief, but I really question the value compared to a 3D model. It may be semantics and I am sure of the proper term but I would not equate rendering with modeling. I create a model (3D digital model) in order that I may render it (3D view with or without ray tracing, etc.) Chief does most of the modeling for us, especially on simple designs. Rendering is like photographing a real house. It is all about liighting, especially the interior shots. A cardboard doll house doesn't do much for me and I think this is where the concept of being able to charge for modeling came from. The architects have equated it to 3D design because most of them still think in terms of 2D production. In my experience the architects here using Chief are in the significant minority.

Most residential architects in Calfornia are still hand drawing their plans and prefer it. It is the artist mentality. They do not embrace technology and many feel that their artistic expression is limited by stock symbol components. True enough, but the contractor who has to actually build the house is pretty well limited by stock building components and one of the reasons for groken budgets is ignoring this.

http://www.chiefarchitect.com/chieft...threadid=10810

I guess its a mater of opion,but the debate is now raging over the internet,Theres always 2 sides to the story,Your welcome to post on that board-I guess?
Cheers

http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubb/...;f=12;t=004541

[Arkham_fa]

The truth is that the only “real” design tool is our brain, therefore, our only limitations rely on ourselves, Chief, as well as AutoCAD, 3d max, VectorWorks and all the software available plus markers, pencils and paper; are simple tools that we use to better communicate with the rest of the world. I think the use of this software, more than a drafting device should be sitting on time management issues and specially (at least I think) in marketing purposes.
Then again, I’m new in this country, so I may be wrong.

Fabian Fernandez
www.arkhamdesignlabs.com
14314 Watery Mountain Ct.
Centreville VA 20120

[gpickren]

I glanced at your link. The debate seems not be be specifically about modeling, but 2D drawing versus learning 3D software. Draftsmen who are experienced in 2D seem to have great difficulty in thinking of objects because everything to them is lines.

I am not proficient enough in the CAD aspects of Chief to comment on them, but I am very familiar with how Chief functions as a design and presentation tool.

I recently reviewed a complete set of plans for a single story remodel and addition on a raised foundation produced by the office of an architect friend, who has 30 years of experience and is a solid, sensibile practioner. He told me that to draft these by hand start to finish would take him about 60 hours. He then invited me to guess how long it took for his draftsmen using Autocad to compete it. One hundred and forty hours! This is more a comment on the draftsman than Autocad, yet I was astounded. So was he.

I began to study the plans. The first thing I noticed is that he must be using a calculator to do his vent calcs and forgot that A=PI R2 because his calcs were not even close. Then, I saw redundant tables, a refllected ceiling plan on a house with no ceiling details, etc.

Now, I don't want to take one case and apply it to the whole industry, but I do have similar experience with how automation affected the mortgage industry that I worked in for 30 years. You had experienced people whose value was based on their traditional standards and they did not want to change even when they got new tools. So we had a guy whose job it was to prepare groups of mortgages to be pooled into Ginnie Mae securities. He told us the rule of thumb was it took one "man-day" per million $ to ship. Nothing we could do could get him off that schedule.

So we ceased doing business with his company, hired a bank clerk with no experience, and taught her how to use the new sofware. Guess what? We could ship $10 million in a couple of hours. It doesn't matter what software we gave the first guy. He was not going to change the way he did things and he did them at a $1 milllion per day pace, or he wanted more staff.

I have found this to be typical organizational behavior. In learning new software, one can either try to make it do what you are used to doing or you can go backwards for a time and learn to use it the way it was designed. But, at first there is always going to be a loss of productivity in certain areas.

I remember seeing a cartoon where these two guys are neck deep in a ditch they were digging and right next to them was a brand new backhoe. When asked why they weren't using the backhoe, they said they had not had time to learn how to use it. They were too busy digging a ditch. That is really what most of the debate is about. People are busy doing whatever they were comfortable doing. An expert hand draftsman hates to feel like a dufus every five minutes trying to learn software and using software is an entirely different skill set, especially using a 3D design program. It is not much different, I suspect, trying to learn Chief after being experienced with Autocad. Sometimes our experience blinds our own eyes.

To me, Chief layout reminds me more of desktop publishing. Most of the construction document time in California is text trying to satisfy what each city wants on their plans. I referring to plans like the remodel that should be fairly simple, but somehow are not. It would be nice if Chief could paste and format text like Microsoft Publisher. It looks like they are getting closer, but it is still a far cry from Publisher.

But who said I have to have reverse fonts with shaded blocks on my title page? This is like the early days of word processing when no one wanted to use dot matrix fonts on their loan documents. Many people went to great expense to print on letter quality impact printers which where also slower. So I used dot matrix. They were legible and and legal. Style was not important. They were legal documents.

I guess the bottom line is I don't have much desire to debate. If hand drafting or Autocad are better, then I am not interested in doing this at all. Based on what I have seen, Chief offers the best shot toward semiautomating much of the plan process. I have had it since V6.0 but did not use it much myself, I tried to get employees to use it. Now, I have the time to try it for myself and my goal is to try learn to use it right and see how much time I can cut out of the draftsman's rule of thumb.

Much is often said about thinking outside the box. What is rarely considered is WHO MADE THE BOX? Ususally it is ourselves and we seal ourselves in it making us our own prisoner. To that end I appreciate the helpfulness of those experienced hands here.