I am very happy to create exciting animations for our products. Let's try to make this process the smoothest possible by going through some guidelines and recommendations. Lets take a look into the roles:
1. The MarcommThis person needs to shape the request and have contact with various parts, for example sales, marketing, engineering. The Marcomm will gather and shape up the package with the actual need to be performed by the 3D team.
2. The Assembler
In some occasions, the 3D Designer will also do assembly tasks, to speed up the process. For example, I get a wind shaft but it does not include the bearings. An engineer sends me the bearings and will make the assembly on my own.
3. The 3D team
They have in-depth knowledge of various technologies regarding 3D Visualization, Real Time, Interactivity, Video Games, VR, 360 video and photo. The 3D designer will listen the Marcomm requirements and receive a complete package with a description of the tasks and the 3D Data. In other cases, the 3D designer might receive a sketch or an idea to produce an animation. The 3D Designer will complete the production and listen to the Marcomm and check that the production is aligned with the brand image present in the Invision document.
Benefits of going internal
By going internal there are two immediate benefits. The first one is that it is quite likely that my cost center is different than yours. This means that the cost of my production, for your department could be zero as opposed to contract an external agency. Another benefit is that delivery times are usually much shorter.
Technical differences with external agencies
The process of making 3D movies is complex. I use the newest technologies in "different" ways. I am doing all my production in Real Time with Unity Engine and that cuts time in an incredible way.
A one-minute movie using the "traditional" way (meaning CPU or GPU rendering inside a 3D modelling package) takes approximately 60hours, depending on the complexity and resolution. In my Real Time Engine, it takes 60 seconds to render a 60 second animation. The result in real time is immediate.
Some people might say that the animations made in the "traditional" method look more realistic than the ones made in a real time engine, and this is true in some cases. I am not aiming to have the most realistic animations. I aim for the balance of having one person make a great movie with one machine. Finding the balance between time, budget and quality is key. A real time project can go to many different directions as it can become interactive, 360, Virtual Reality, etc.
Artistic Freedom
After balancing out the cons and pros of using internal visualization, we come to the point of the artistic freedom.
Being an internal part of the company, It is my mission to produce the best possible result in the shortest time as opposed to an external agency / consultants in which its priority might be to sell as many hours as possible.
If you decide to hand in your project for an internal visualization please have in mind that I will have the artistic freedom to produce it the best way I consider. We will have meetings to discuss and we will agree on certain things prior to the visualization.
My production will be aligned with the current standards we have in our InVision guide. As an expert in the field and after listening the requirements of the Marcomm, please have in mind that I do not have the time to explore and produce a high number of changes, usually two rounds.
Please also have in mind that a 3D animation is a graphical production and that text should be kept at its minimum. If your production requires a high amount of text and graphs, 3D animation is not perhaps the best medium to convey the message.
Click
here to take a look to the completed projects using Real Time visualization.