Here at Render 3D Quick, we pride ourselves on being able to deliver stunning architectural 3d rendering, much more quickly than our competitors, and at a very affordable rate - sometimes surprisingly so.
Take for instance this five star review from Geza on our Google Business page:
These guys are the real deal. When I received the price quote I didn't expect much. Then I was told I only had to put 50% down, I was real skeptical. Then they totally blew me away with the results. Alex was easy to communicate with and it seems like they work 24 hours a day! They turned around the task in a short window and made all the changes I wanted in under 24 hours. I have a 3D printing company and they even modeled my printers in the demo room! Amazing job, I will be using you for all my future projects.
~ Geza Czako
Even though our prices are awesome, we sometimes come across clients who are on the fence about paying a professional rendering company to do their renderings for them, versus spending the time to learn how rendering home images by hand or computer works themselves.
Usually when we explain that our team has gone to university to study architecture, and have each spent 1,000s of hours learning and using the software needed to create great renderings, our potential client will jump on board. But for anyone who is still uncertain, we thought we’d do a deep dive into the hidden costs of trying to learn how to do amazing renderings yourself.
And just in case you’re wondering, here are just a few of the high quality renderings we’ve produced in the last month:
The hidden costs involved in doing courses to learn hand or computer architectural rendering fall into three main categories: Financial cost, time or opportunity cost, emotional cost and quality cost.
Financial Cost
It’s much more costly to DIY your renderings than to pay a professional company to do them for you.
When most people think of cost, they think of their immediate outlay. They want a 3D visualization done, and so they think of how much it will cost in dollar terms to have it created, and think they could do it “cheaper” themselves..
What most people don’t consider however, is that there are a number of financial costs involved in learning a new skill, particularly one that requires materials or high-performance technologies to do effectively.
To begin with, you’re going to have to pay for the course tuition to learn how to become a renderer. Certificate courses in this field can cost around $2500, which is already more than the average 3D rendering job we complete!
Beyond this however is the cost of artistic materials for a hand drawing course (which will give you limited long term application of your skills), or the cost of the software required for the computer renderings. While there are free trials available for software, these are often not enough to learn the skills needed to the required level to create good renderings. This type of software runs into the hundreds and thousands of dollars depending on the software package you choose.
3D design and the final process of rendering plan images is also very technologically intensive, so you’ll need a high powered computer to get the job done without a huge amount of frustration. Some of our images take upwards of 20 hours just to render after the design is done, even on high powered computers, and your family may not like you slowing down the computer for this long, or longer if you have an older machine.
If you think about how much money you make per hour, and multiply that by the amount of time it will take to get good at architectural rendering (at least 100s of hours to get to a professional level plus more if you want to get into 3d animation architecture or virtual reality home tours), plus the addition of expenses like materials or upgraded computers, taking the DIY route suddenly becomes very expensive.
Time and Opportunity Cost
All that time you might spend learning how to do your own renderings is time you could be spending doing things you actually care about and enjoy (or that could be spent making more money)
Time is our most scarce and precious resource. Once it’s gone, no matter what we do, we can’t get it back.
Do you really want to spend the 100s and 1000s of hours it takes to become proficient at renderings to try and do it yourself? Think about the opportunities you would lose by spending that time, rather than paying a professional to do it for you.
You could spend that time with your favorite pet or loved ones, doing a hobby you like, relaxing, or even making more money by focusing on the skills that you are already good at!
Emotional Cost
Learning a new skill can be frustrating
Learning any new skill can be a challenging process. This is particularly true when it involves complex software, as well as the need to have artistic and design flair and a solid understanding of architecture. If you try to take the DIY route, you’re not just having to learn one skill, it’s really more like three - and that can be frustrating, especially if you’re not good in all relevant areas!
You’ll likely find that it takes a very long time for you to get to a standard you are happy with (especially if you’re a perfectionist), and even though you may not get the satisfaction of doing good work yourself, paying a professional who does this kind of work all day every day will save you a whole lot of stress. It might even save your relationship, as you’ll have so much more time to spend with your significant other, rather than sitting on the computer and slowly pulling your hair out!
Given how stressful are lives are nowadays, do you really need to bring more stress into your environment by trying to go the DIY route?
Quality Cost
Last but not least, and let’s be honest here - if you do it yourself, the end result will likely just not be as good. Our team of professionals have hundreds of thousands of hours of 3D rendering experience between them. That’s a big head start on anyone trying to DIY.
We live and breathe architectural rendering, we’re highly trained for it, we love it, and that’s why we can turn around your renderings so quickly, at such high quality and at such a great price.
Who Should Do Their Own Renderings
In our opinion there’s only one type of person who should be trying to learn how to do their own renderings. People who want to work in the industry.
For everyone else - even architects in many cases - it will be much more time and cost efficient for you to focus on your specific area of specialty, and to hire other people (us!) with expertise in renderings to do your visualizations for you.
If you’d like to get started on a new project, call us directly on 1-877-350-3490 or get in touch through our quote form, we look forward to seeing what we can do for you!
Alex Smith
Manager & Co-Owner Render 3D Quick
Alex Smith is a manager and co-owner at Render3DQuick, with over 6 years’ experience project managing their large team of 3D rendering professionals. Alex is obsessed with architecture and is a CAD design specialist in his own right and an expert in the field of architectural visualization, 3D rendering, and virtual reality tours.
As the first point of contact when you get in touch with Render3DQuick, Alex loves sharing his knowledge and answering any questions you may have about architectural visualization or the latest technologies and techniques they utilize.
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn here.