Posted by nobody special on 10/12/05 01:46

Depends too on what you mean by "graphics". I have clients that use
that as a catch-all term for anything between imported bitmaps from an
existing Powerpoint, to simple lower thirds, tovirtual sets, to 3-D
animation in Maya/Alias with inverse kinematics, lip synched dialog,
HDRI and volumetric renders of photoreal humans and myriads of
background objects all dancing like a Busby Berkeley routine.

I have had clients show me a 15-second car-accident reenactment
animation, they told me their best graphics guy spent a month on it,
and it was "very expensive". He'd imported a pre-built model of the car
from Turbosquid, not changed the color to match the real car, and it
was a hard top instead of a convertible as the real car was. He never
added any detail to the underside of the car geometry, so when it
flipped over, the bottom looked like a HotWheels toy. He had
composited the car into a road scene from the actual location, shot on
video, that was nice effort, but the scale was off, so the animated car
was about the relative size of a go-kart, and the composite was a
simple z-move to 'shrink' the car into the distance without true
scaling or perspective change, it's wheels merely skated across the
road while turning at the wrong speed... Finally, he had no real-world
physics engine or forward kinematics to define the car's trajectory, so
he just keyframed a few positions, and didn't even tweak the paths. So
the car stops in mid-flight, changes paths almost 90 degress, and
Accellerates into the new path as it rolls into a farm field, before
coming to a sudden stop. It's path was at least as convoluted as the
Warren Commission's "Magic Bullet". This apparently was supposed to be
submitted in a court of law. I know high school interns using Blender
that could do better. Client was SO proud of it. I didn't have the
heart to tell them.
What would you bill THAT job at?

Graphics should be cheaper... but often aren't. I think Steve hits it
right: a fixed rule of thumb number is only good for doing the same
exact job every day. Thank God that's not my world.

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