Mods, feel free to move this anytime, I don’t know where to put this exactly. Didn’t feel right at Jobs threads either because they are very to the point posts. I also don’t want to make a job post to ask this as this would waste their time as I cannot hire at this very moment.
I’d appreciate if people could give me an estimate, what would be the average $ cost for hiring someone to do the following work tasks related to UE models.
Create a custom level Prop pack. Let’s say high quality specific scifi type prop asset pack, enough to populate a mid sized level.
Custom character, high quality, rigged to UE skeleton. Let’s say a realistic looking cyborg type of scifi model. Only 1.
Modify one models materials so that they look very different. Max. only little work needs to be done on the mesh itself.
For a professional, a good character with no special stuff (hair, modular clothing etc) can take anywhere from 5 hours to 7 days depending on quality, texturing, and art direction.
As far as props go, building a set without any idea what you need to do is a bit of an impossibility.
If you had a list with what they are, poly count, lod, texturing parameters etc. It would likely take 3 to 5 hours per prop on large modular things with precise texel density and custom lightmaps, to 30m to 4h or so for small things like spoons, forks, bottles, etc. Where most of the time is put into texturing.
Again, that too depends on parameters.
for instance, a decent asset developer will know to combine all objects related to the same environment into 1 texture so that memory load can be reduced.
A novice wouldn’t have any idea of that.
There’s a lot that goes into even defining what a “good asset” is… and a lot more that really just comes to having actually built for games vs just being a 3d artist.
As a 3d general artist (Blender // TopSolid // Maya // Quixel // Substance …), i’ve worked recently for a Eastern Europe studio as a freelancer (Private and Upwork jobs), i’ve made a simple character (raw character) with 15 animations, uv mapping, 4096x4096 // 1 Biome Atlas texturing (Atlas texturing is used for reduce calls in game// like 3 or 4 differents textures into a same texture “Atlas”) the goal was to build a blender Template, for them, it take me 4 days and it has cost 1250$.
Asked for starting the project :
Script of the project and the targets
Colors and realism targets
Textures from outer the Blender file or custom Dynamic Shaders
Reference Animations // Textures exemple
General discutions about the job
The delivery files contained :
The main Blender project file with their personal interface startup (custom tabs//Animation windows with custom arrangement)
15 animations dropped into the NLA stack (like T-Pose // Walk // Run // Idles // Crouch // Head Tracking …ect)
1 Raw character (Weight painted ready to share his custom weight) see attachement
1 Blender rig with Layers skeleton modified (IK into layer // FK into another // Deform bones into another …)
1 Custom rig (deform bones with custom names, no idea why but they ask for)
Dynamic shader ready to put png’s or tiff ect… with uv mapping nodes
1 Krita file “AtlasTextures” see attachement
and as always tiny gifts and free limited number of reviews
Hope it help you to understand the market, i live in France, so the cost is different with differents country arround the world, for the same project a Indian or a Pakistanese can ask something like 500$ 600$ or less depending the skill level and the country where they live. take care.
Ps: attachement // I add a documentation type i have made for another client i made for free to help the studio with blender interface (free gift).
Create a custom level Prop pack. Let’s say high quality specific scifi type prop asset pack, enough to populate a mid sized level.
Depending of the numbers of assets (props) asked and the complexity (LOD’s) : from 350$ up to 1500$ (scifi high res props are very technical, and time consummer (baking maps)
Custom character, high quality, rigged to UE skeleton. Let’s say a realistic looking cyborg type of scifi model. Only 1.
Depending : numbers of the final Poly’s count (how many LOD’s ?) 750$ up to 2500$
Modify one models materials so that they look very different. Max. only little work needs to be done on the mesh itself.
0$ you can easyietly manage a master material into unreal by following tutorials, it save money, but if you dont have time 100$ up to 150$
The prices are not fixed prices at all, i just give a range, it really depend on you, and your preparation before hiring a freelancer, being prepared with all infos generally asked by Artists will help you to finalize the project without reviews, a reviews can cost you a lot if the Artist take his time a lot to modify the final target, prepare everything, and be sure of the result you need, and after that, hire a freelancer or a Dedicated Artist.