Cineversity

Are there jobs around where I can use Cinema 4D, working from home?  Preferably visualizing architecture.

Better yet, what are some things I could make with Cinema 4D that people would like to buy?  Preferably Starting off with something simple for now, something that common people would like to have.  I’d like to make stuff from home using Cinema 4D and sell it to the public.

And if there are any recommended tutorials for this I’d like to see them too.
Thanks.

Hi Jamestown,

Placing yourself into the market needs of course a clear idea where you and your clients are positioned. CINEMA 4D doesn’t show tight borders of its usefulness, so it is hard to go from there. Being wide open in its options, and based on that, C4D is not helpful to pin-point and limit areas of work by itself.

If you do not know both positions (Yours and the Client you like to work with), your activities goes in all directions and with that becomes so presumably weak.
I can’t repeat all of the things I have learned in business school, if you feel the need—get some books about.

In the following I will draw roughly (!) the areas where it could be. Select the ones that appeals to you, and go from there. Again, this is a very small start only. A real business plan needs way more time, if any success might be targeted. This is perhaps not the place normally to discuss this, but I guess it is of common interest.

I will not list URLs with models or texture trading, etc. Not the place here and not my intention at all. They can be found via Google. No need to share them here I guess.

The bandwidth of options to use CINEMA 4D is certainly breathtaking, have a look:  http://www.maxon.net/customer-stories.html
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What can you offer?

The first rough idea of where your market can be is based on a clear view to your skills. Typically you have to work very well in C4D and offer a superb product on the end, or you have a strong background in an area and use C4D more as your “typewriter”. With that I have in mind, if you have , e.g., a medical background, you will understand a very specific client much better, with that you are able to work with these kind of high profile clients in the first place. (Speaking the “language” of the clients is key, they don’t like to teach you over many weeks normally, but mostly they know, where to bring you up to speed, if a good understand of the filed is given otherwise).

Architectural Visualization—what makes you qualified, do you have examples, studied architecture, won awards, wrote a book about or being published, perhaps you had some exhibitions with your work. (I have done all of that—and yes—it is work!) Where is the “unique selling point” for you here? I hope I do not sound harsh here, but these are the things people might ask you. What makes you special, so people prefer to work with you rather than with others.

The main idea is, where can you show publicly the best skills and where are they needed. There is always the idea of a generalist, but it is really hard to make a good PR for that, as your target group is of course then also very large. Furthermore, the less specific your offer is, the more competition you might have to face. With that, the business needs a lot of communication work, rather than focus on creating products.
Find out where your highest skill and motivation is. The more specific you know what you will offer, the faster you can communicate that. In the film business, the term is “Elevator Pitch”, you need to get your idea during a short ride across, if you can’t—you might be in trouble. If you can, you know where you are, and that makes you visible for clients. If you don’t know what you can do, your client will not know either.
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Clients

Clients for C4D based products can be C4D users or anyone else. C4D user might take advantages of solutions or, e.g., models that you have prepared. As they normally know their stuff, you need to have excellent skills, or have put time into something that makes it worth to buy from you, as they might have not the time currently for it.
Any other client is typically based in into two groups as well, they might request an individual work from you, based on their ideas, or they need things like stock-footage or images.
Make a decision, where you feel the strongest in your work, then take the position of your “future client” and try to think of what they would expect to get from you and how to connect with you. (In this way you find as well your competition (Web-search). The main idea here is to see what you can do in a certain amount of time, starting right now. How could your client benefit from your work, define this clearly—communicate exactly that.

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Visibility

Most freelancer have not the money to have a PR agency working from them. Today I see the social media as the way to go. But that is really hard work. First of all, find the network that fits to your needs (skills and clients). Sometimes I get the impression people search networks with people who do already what “they” do, because they understand the needs… You don’t sell fish to fishers, they have enough fish, but they love to talk about fish—however, doesn’t pay the bills, if you have not an exotic fish to sell.
If you like to get enough exposure, you need to understand the network in which you are in. For example, the most simple way seems to be to have some FaceBook pages and get your “friends” there. Well, a short analysis shows, that you go no-where with FB until you pay them. Yes, you can have something like a free “business-wall” there such as a fan-page, etc. Then you might collect with some effort a huge number of “LIKEs”. Which is nice, but gives you no advantage on the long run. A LIKE is given once and mostly way back in the past. There is no option to push every new message to everyone who has LIKE’d it years ago for example. The algorithm of FB work, so far my analysis, mostly on interactivity, if you don’t interact with the people, “you” are not really connected and FB will not push the information to everyones “wall”.  If you do not interact, chances that your newest ‘post” is seen, might be way below 10%. Or you pay them. Active followers are the key, note people who liked “you” once are not followers.

Based on my assumption, and if the amount of people is in the six or seven digit numbers, then one percent or less might notice any activity at all. A small number, and below thousand it might have a higher interactivity and with that a better chance to get noticed. But then again, not really efficient. I guess the interactivity doesn’t matter for 100 or 200 people on the list, at least not that much.

I have met in the past two years, several photographers with up to eight million followers (people who circled them, G+ gives one only 5,000 options to circle others, not an infinite number of Likes as FB does), grand players in the social media, and they use this to make a good living from it. But so far I was told, it is really hard work. My partner has 1.3+ million people who have circled here on G+, and a quarter million followers on FaceBook. Yes, I have done my homework there. To get something out of this social media, be a mentor there, make tutorials and share your work, but most importantly, be interactive. To just post something or even share only what was already published with no follow up discussion, it is a waste of time in my book. Be useful, share interesting things, and it might work, but sharing what others did before, not so much. Again, find your USP (unique selling point)

In a nutshell, show and share, but most importantly, be interactive—communicate and get your future clients to know.
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Business

Everyone knows the formula between the things offered and the ones requested. If the offers are plenty and the requests are low, you have a problem, as seller. So find something that is needed and wanted, as well where most people have no option to produce it—if your passion is in that area, you have a good starting position. To ask about that in public and find the “golden content” increases on the spot your competition. Which is another reason to not answer directly your question, that is your work only or it doesn’t work at all.

People who will invest money, need to have faith in ones work, words and promises will not lead to that easily, but if you can show something, it might work better. The best thing to have is references from jobs done. But nothing beats a good network; In many ways.

Of course there are many ways that might exclude the things said above. For example, to provide models or scene files for content providers, think of the places where you can buy 3D models.

Never give anything less than 100%, even if people like to get it done for the deadline in anyway, after the deadline has passed, the critical mind is active again, and you work perhaps in the filed, with no option to improve it. Reaching the deadline is then not longer the main interest. Quality is the key, on the long run.

All in all, take the positions of your ideal client, and ask yourself, how could s/he find me. Ignore what you know about yourself if you do so: specific terms or knowledge. Just think of a client close to a deadline, stressed and without patience—how is s/he able to find you. ...and if found, do you provide clear a information? Avoid flash animations and long text, just make them find you, and give them an easy way to connect with you instantly.

Good Luck

Sassi

Thanks for your answers and input.  It usually takes time for me to process this and think about it, which is good.  And it’s been quite helpful and has given me some good things to think about.  And I found some specific things that I’d like to do.

Thank you very much for the feedback, Jamestown.

Yes, it is some work, but after a while it is like second nature. A branding expert wrote a while ago, in one of his books a very important line: “This is what we are, and this is what we aren’t”. If I’m not mistaken he coined the term “Radical Branding” in the ‘90s with that, and his core message was to give a client a clear image who you are and what you are not. This helps to position your service in the market.
I’ve tried over years the “generalist” idea in Europe and that was not the strongest part in my company, not at all. So, I share here my experience about many decades of doing stuff.

My best wishes for your efforts.

Sassi

I’m also struggling with some motivational issues these days.  I know what I want to do with my Cinema 4D file, and I know I can do it, but I tend to keep putting it off, getting distracted and doing other stuff.  I want to keep trying and get it done.  What would you recommend?

Hey Jamestown,

De-motivation might be a sign that the expectations and the skill-level don’t match. If you can see it and it is nearly real in your imagination, the reality can be anything than pleasure, if the groundwork isn’t there. How to overcome this?

First thing—spot when you feel that the motivation is fading, write down what happen in that moment. Try to find a pattern in that.

Do you have a motivational context, friends, family, etc. ? If not, find one: online or create a small user group.

How much pressure do you create on your own? Pressure means here expectations in relation to time. Expectations too high or the time too short, perhaps both, increase the pressure. Constant pressure is not motivational, nor healthy on the long run. It has the potential to lower your motivation if the results of it are not honored in a huge way.

Questioning your self is certainly poison to your motivation. Make a plan what you like to achieve, write it down. Check it ever day if that was a realistic plan. To be a 3D artist is a complex job. You get something done in a short time, but you will never stop learning. No one knows everything, never met one in over twenty years using digital graphic tools professionally, and over thirty-plus years using computers. I learn every day. Anyone who pretend to know it all—certainly a candidate to be left alone. So, no pressure, it takes time.

Well, an old teacher will tell everyone without looking at them, practice, practice, practice. Just keep going. Which ignores of course the core problem. I think I defined one issue responsible for this many years ago. It has to do with tutorials that pushes “you” to get a “cool” result, without correct basics or no basics at all. The one who follows such tutorials feels what is possible, and s/he did it, but to create a similar thing is not a given. There comes the frustration into the game. To have touched that level for a moment, allows for the illusion to be already on that level, ... and basics, who needs basics? The next more advanced tutorial is searched, for the kick. The result after doing it, the “artist in training” feels even more alone on that level. I’m not happy with this stuff, they push very fast and leave then the one learning alone. The result here as well: demotivation. Everything else seems then more important, more promising. The side effect is then, that less time will be spend with the application. Whatever was learned is not used and will fade after a while. But the fast cool result, perhaps posted on YouTube, shows that the one could do it, so the reason must be in the application. In the moment something else is to blame, one has to wait until the object that is blamed will change. Perhaps never. Some buy stuff and fill the gap, to feel better.
In a nutshell: if you learn only cool tricks, you might get something done, but the real power is given by knowing each tool inside an out. Which can’t be thought, it needs experimenting and playing with the options given, just explore each day one option/tool/function in depth. You need to explore, just adapting from others will not cut it, never has.

I think I gave enough examples where you get (perhaps) you de-motivation from. My tip: pretty much everything is dividable in little steps. Set small targets, set easy to achieve targets. Feel that these things work. Play with them, explore the tools without targets. After a while the little steps become second nature and you have no idea how to not know it. You will start to see the world around you as playground. Each object is separated in sub objects, or procedurals, how to model this can, this cup or this rim with the tire. Everything can be build, and certainly one has modeled it to bring it into reality. You can do it, but if I summarize my last ten years, 90% of all the questions ask, boiled down to the basics, not to complex procedurals. Most stuff is easy, but with out the basics, it is unbearable. It makes you tired and worse case it can burn you out, if you constantly battle with targets and miss out standard procedurals.

Take simple object, super simple objects. Try to make a cube in as many different ways as possible. E.g., set a Sphere to a very low amount of Segments. These are basics.
Patrick shows a lot in his fork and cup tutorials. All of that takes time. A 3D artists needs a lot of knowledge, but it accumulates over time. take your time.

Set small targets for each day, very small targets. If you get it done, try to do it in a different way.

Distraction is only there if you allow for it. I see so many people take time for watching sport of making a BBQ. Certainly nothing that would bring others in danger if ignored, time to learn. It is a serious JOB, with a lot of options, nothing that is done with a few weeks of clicking. Set targets.

Good luck.

Sassi