The Future of Architectural Visualization

The Future of Architectural Visualization

By Jeff Mottle (jmottle@cgarchitect.com)  
Jeff Mottle is the President and Founder of CGarchitect.com and is the North American Production Director for Smoothe.

For those of you that were not able to attend my session at this year’s 3DFestival in Copenhagen, I thought I’d summarize many of the items I presented. As many of you may recall, CGarchitect.com hosted the first ever survey to poll all facets of our industry ranging from full time studios to freelance artists and software/hardware vendors. The content of my presentation covered the results of this survey as well as my thoughts on the future of our industry.

Having been in this industry for the past nine years, I have seen it come a very long way, but until recently it has not received the same level recognition that our CG counterparts in the gaming and entertainment fields have received. As a result there had never been a formal public analysis of the industry to detail how it works, its current structure and where it might be headed in the next 5 to 10 years. The purpose of our survey was to create a cross section through the industry as it exists today and to determine how fast it is growing and in what areas.

The survey itself was comprised of 83 multiple choice and long answer questions and was served with intelligent survey software that ensured only relevant questions were asked to participants. Over the course of four weeks 815 people completed survey, which along with my personal experience, was able to give me a pretty clear idea of where things are headed. Of course we’d be here for a few days if I were to go through every question, so I’ll be keeping this article relatively short and will be summarizing some of the more interesting information. For those that want to view the full survey results, they can be downloaded here: http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5644

The first thing I thought would be interesting to present is what the average company and person looks like in our industry. We are all pretty familiar with our own backyard, but I think few know what the typical community member looks like.

Of the 815 survey participants there was roughly a 70/30 split between full time CG artists and freelancers who have been in the industry for five to nine years. Most of the participants have degrees in Architecture and are currently working in house. Not too surprisingly there was only a four percent female population represented in the survey, which I feel is probably quite representative of the industry as a whole, both statistically and from my personal experience. Of the overwhelmingly male population the average age was approximately 33. The most interesting figure in the average demographic was that 60% of the freelancers expect to be working in a full time capacity within the next five years. In my opinion this very indicative of a significant shift in the industry’s structure in the next five to ten years, which I will go into in more detail later in the article.

As I eluded to earlier most people in our industry are Architects that are working in a full time CG capacity, so it stands to reason that most CG studios are found in-house in architectural firms, and the survey data does supports this. Most companies in our industry are 2-20 people in size with 2-5 of those people being full time CG artists and have been providing Architectural CG services for six years. I was delighted to see that the vast majority of people in our industry are more artistically trained than they are technically adept, although there is still a good number that are well versed in both aspects of the industry.

There were many questions in the survey that queried the types of projects being done within our community, as well as the client base they are being done for. Animations represented less than 25% of all CG work being done in today’s studios with the majority of still images aspiring to photo-real standards. Hybrid images (images that are composed from both CG and traditional media elements) are on the rise, which is not surprising considering that 32% of all Architectural illustrations are still being hand-rendered. Most of our clients are Architects, followed closely by Real-Estate developers located locally to the studios for whom they do work for. Commercial project make up the vast majority of the projects that are being done.

The growth of our industry was one of the more important reasons for creating the survey and the answers revealed some interesting trends. Animation and Video Productions were predicted to be the areas of most growth within studios, with VR services also expected to grow in the next five years. Studio/Staff growth is increasing but will be slow and steady. Many also expect to be outsourcing more of their work in the coming years. Software and Hardware vendors are shifting more of their attentions to the Design Visualization industries, but most do not expect to increase the size of their departments or companies in response to this expanded focus. For those that always wanted to know how big our industry is, the hardware and software vendors that took our survey place it firmly in the 200,000 to 400,000 range. 

Industry Analysis  

So what does this all mean? I read a report not too long ago that said that the design visualization industry (and I am talking about the software/hardware end of the industry) was predicted to grow 23% over the next 7 years as opposed to the entertainment and gaming industries that were expected to grow only 1% in that same timeframe.

Based upon the results of our survey I do think 23% growth is probably a bit overly optimistic. The design visualization field is now on the map and is no longer flying under the radar of software and hardware companies. Many are now clearly focusing attention on features that can now help them gain a toe hold in our less saturated industry. That having been said, about 40% of respondents in the software/hardware industry indicated the advancements they make in our field will no more significant than any of their other target markets. Bottom line, we are finally on the radar so we can expect vendors to be more responsive to our needs and requirements, but I don’t think the entertainment and gaming industries will be taking a back seat to us any time soon.

Earlier in this article I commented on the trend of freelancers making the break for full time employment and as a result I do see some changes on the horizon in the way our industry will be structured in the coming years. If there is no other significant development in our industry in the next 5-10 years, I think this will be it. Currently there is roughly a 70/30 split between full time CG artists and freelancers working for either dedicated design marketing firms or in-house architectural studios. With the new generation of architects entering the market with an aptitude and enthusiasm for architectural CG, and a solid footing in design, I think the current lot of freelancers and one man shops will have some serious thinking to do about the way they run their businesses. While many smaller architectural firms currently outsource CG projects to specialized firms, as the in-house staff becomes more savvy there will undoubtedly be less work being farmed to freelancers and small shops. The long upstart times getting someone trained will no longer be a problem and the cost of maintaining an in-house team will in the long run cost substantially less. Don’t get me wrong there will always be work for freelancers and one man shops, but I anticipate the work they do will be for much smaller projects and for firms that are either too overloaded to do it themselves or for the few architectural practices that can’t afford a full time staff due to the infrequent use of CG on their projects. In five to ten years I see the vast majority of CG being done in-house. Those that aren’t working in-house will be working for a select group of dedicated design communication firms that specialize in not only CG, but the full range of marketing solutions from websites and Real Estate PR to Interactive DVD and VR. To survive in our niche market you will have to provide something that most firms can not produce on their own, or offer a range of services that are simply out of reach for most to provide. This leaves our industry with the majority being done in-house, followed by the large design communication and Real-Estate marketing companies who will pick up the large scale projects leaving the smaller shop to pick up whatever is left over.

There is no doubt that the architectural industry is growing and at a steady pace, but I don’t see leaps and bounds being made, or immediate changes in the way things are progressing now. No doubt we will see some impressive moves made in the areas of VR and NPR and obviously a few breakthrough developments, but on a whole, I do not anticipate any huge shake ups in our industry in the coming years, other than the way we are currently strcutured.

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