What is the production cost and cycle of 3D rendering animation?

The production cost and cycle of 3D rendering animation do not have a fixed standard. Instead, they are influenced by multiple factors such as project complexity, technical requirements, and team size, presenting a relatively wide range of flexibility. From the perspective of cost structure, it covers the entire process from pre-planning, model building, animation production, rendering output to post-synthesis. In the early planning stage, simple projects can be completed by the internal team, and the cost proportion is relatively low. For complex animated film projects, the preliminary work such as character design and scriptwriting alone may cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan. The cost difference between the model and asset production stages is even more significant. The cost of low-polygon game character models is only a few hundred to several thousand yuan. However, to achieve film and television level high precision, the modeling cost of a single car model or biological character may be as high as tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan.

The animation and rendering stage is the major part of the cost expenditure. The cost of a regular product demonstration animation is between 500 and 2,000 yuan per second, while that of a film-level complex character animation exceeds 3,000 yuan per second. For instance, the cost of a Hollywood animated film even exceeds 100,000 yuan per second. The rendering process relies on hardware and scene complexity. Using a professional rendering farm to produce a 10-second car advertisement may cost between 12,500 and 50,000 yuan. If complex special effects are involved, the cost will increase significantly. Post-production synthesis and sound effect production should not be overlooked either. A professional sound effect team and Dolby Atmos production may increase the cost by more than 20%. Taking common projects in the industry as examples, the cost of a promotional video for small and micro enterprises is usually between 50,000 and 300,000 yuan. The cost of a game CG animation may reach 500,000 to 2 million yuan, while the cost of a film-level animated short film can be as high as several million yuan or even more.
In terms of production cycle, projects can be classified by scale into short, flat and fast, medium-scale and large-scale projects. Simple e-commerce product display animations can be completed within 1 to 4 weeks, relying on templated assets and standardized processes. For medium-sized enterprise brand animations or game character PVS, the production cycle is usually 1 to 3 months, involving multiple links such as script refinement, modeling, and animation production. Changes in requirements may lead to a significant extension of the cycle. For large-scale projects such as animated films and industrial simulation systems, the development and production cycle often lasts for more than six months.
To optimize costs and cycles, it is necessary to clarify the core requirements of the project and avoid excessive pursuit of details. Improve efficiency by using technical tools such as cloud rendering platforms and real-time rendering engines; Choose outsourcing or self-built teams reasonably and adopt the agile development model. In recent years, the popularization of AI technology has lowered the production threshold, but the audience's requirements for visual quality have also been increasing, leading to a development trend in the 3d rendering animation field of "low-end projects becoming more accessible to the general public and high-end projects becoming more refined".
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