VISUAL COMMUNICATION & 3D CONTENT
Are you a developer wondering if there is a big 3d images discount coming?
Well, the answer isn’t simple - it depends on what you mean by discount. But before we dive in, why should you even listen to me?
I’ve been 3d visualization specialist for over 10 years and have lived through more than a few 3D tech hype cycles. But most importantly, I recently went through a job search and I attended multiple interviews, casual chats, and went to networking events. I asked my contacts about AI’s impact and adoption in their practices and what it means for the prices. Here’s a summary of what they say around about AI.
Always Doom and Gloom
One of my contacts agreed with me that AI is not gonna change much. Every time a major rendering engine got adopted by architectural firms - or when earlier AI tools (like GauGAN) appeared—people said it was the end of visualisation jobs. But spoiler alert: it didn't happen.
To mis-quote Taylor Swift "bakers gonna bake' (and candlemakers gonna make candles). Just because it’s easier to bake bread today doesn’t mean most of us start the day with a homemade artisan baguette. Convenience, laziness, and affordability lead most people to buy ready-made rolls.
Similarly, after the initial hype of “Let’s do it in-house! Yay!” and a few trial and errors the enthusiasm fades, the tools are more difficult to master than the marketing demo promised. Companies revert to commissioning to specialists - because the workflow gets optimized at source. A 3D visualizer using AI will still produce better and faster results than a marketing person with no graphic background. That's why practically every tool that was supposed to “kill” visualization has been adopted by the industry and used to enhance the quality and the speed even further.
AI Is “Free” — But Not Really
And yes let's talk about the tool - most of my contacts are either already using paid AI tools mainly for image and video upscaling (1.), image enhencing (2.) or are in the process of adopting them. Free AI tools aren’t consistent, reliable, or good enough to be used in professional workflows. And as soon as a tool is good enough, it comes with a price tag. That means the current perceived “cheapness” of AI is mostly an illusion, supported by the fact that software companies are still burning money to grow and offer free subscription plans. Once AI tools reach production-level reliability, prices go up - and those costs will be passed into the overall visualization pricing. The higher price for AI tools will also result in gatekeeping for "non-pros". If you're doing visualization professionally and producing dozens of images, a €20–50/month subscription could be justifiable. But if you’re only doing a few images as a side gig, you might decide it's not worth it. And again - the work will get commissioned to arch-viz studios.
Tired of the Hype
One of my contacts told me she’s tired of the AI hype and sees little practical value from, the workflow got neither more creative, nor faster - again, with the exception of paid upscalers. Someone else shared a funny anecdote: a developer sent them an AI-generated image with a request to re-make it so it looks nicer- 'the way your images look'. He said he felt mix of pride and relief. A few of my contacts were worried that clients will stop valuing their work as a result of the hype and inflated expectations of what AI can do and how easy it is to use it. In general the overall mood is 'careful adoption with a high doze of skepticism'.
The Real Threat
You might think I'm biased - as a 3D artist, of course I’m going to downplay AI’s impact. But the truth is the biggest factor driving prices down isn’t AI and it's something that we deal with for years now and it's not gonna go away. The outsourcing to developing countries.
AI has issues - lack of consistency between shots and copyright/legal uncertainties. Outsourcing to low-cost countries doesn’t have those problems. It has other issues, as many companies have learned the hard way. Cutting costs this way often means compromising on quality, communication issues, time-zone mis-match and limited control over the process and final result. But in terms of direct competition to local 3D studios, outsourcing is still a bigger threat than AI.
'Funny' fact, many “too-good-to-be-true” AI solutions are exactly that - just buzzword-wrapped outsourcing. Is that a fraud? Yes, it is. But people still buy it. Just look into Amazon AI Stores case or recent bankruptcy of Builder.ai. In both cases there was no AI but hundreds of people hired in India doing work manually. And trust me when I say - the 3D industry has it's own fake AI pipelines too - mainly related to model and texture clean-ups and "magical" generations. If you send some information and have to wait a few days (or in some cases hours) for the results- it's most likely not AI.
But...
In my opinion, AI isn’t going to lower prices any more than Fiverr and Upwork already have. CGI studios that have survived outsourcing by adding value through strong client relationships, reliable delivery, and local market understanding will exist and most likely thrive. AI doesn't threaten those strengths.
That said, AI will have some effect on pricing. From the client’s perspective, there’s some good news. Thanks to mentioned upscalers, rendering times and costs are going down. This means that if you buy animation - you may no longer be charged separately for rendering farm time - just for the production work. Things like short animations from stills or cinemagraphs (animated elements in the image) have gotten MUCH cheaper. Once a quality, still image is ready, these extras can be added with a minimal effort, I expect some studios to give it away as freebie just because they like you. And if they didn't offer yet - you should definitely ask. And thanks to enhancers elements like 3D greenery and 3D people will look more realistic without adding more hours to the bill.
So no, the price of still images probably won’t drop significantly, but you can expect better quality and more (animated) content included in the current fees.
1) upscalers - are software solutions that allow to increase the resolution and quality of the image by using AI algorithms. Because running an upscaler on lower resolution frame takes less time than rendering full resolution frame, you can save a lot of rendering time using this workflow - especially when hundred of frames are required, i,e for animation.
2) enhancers - are AI solutions that add realistic detail like extra wrinkles, dirt and imperfections. This extra level of realism makes especially 3D people and greenery more convincing without much effort. It doesn't really reduce production time, but improves the result without adding extra hours.
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