Expose - But now for LW !!!

[sidewing]

Expose - But now for LW !!!
Dear all,

I'm pleased to announce that VirtueGraphics (www.virtuegraphics.com) is in the process of creating a "Coffee table" show-book with your work.
Yes, the book will be created because we were inspired of the Expose book. But listen to this:

The full color book will not only have your renders but also will have a company bio (or Independent contractor's bio). This means marketing opportunities for you. Win-Win is what we are shooting for.

We have dedicated a gigabyte of space on our server to upload your high res images. As long as they are 300 dpi they will be accepted. The smallest image we accept will be 2.5 Inch wide or high (so that at least 750 pixels).
The site will be available to you soon and announced publically

Smaller to mid-sized companies will be contacted in our industry as well so if they buy the book your company is in it together with contact address.
We have noticed that the key element to get customers as an independent contractor/company in our industry is to educate the potential customer. That's where we all come in place...

The main goal is marketing Lightwave's high quality renders via the following industries:
1. Architectural
2. Medical
3. Equipment manufacturing
4. Aerospace
5. marketing
(sorry, no characters and no material that is NOT LW.)

Why are we doing this?
VirtueGraphics has won two awards of best design and we have been published with our work in 6 magazines (4 international and 1 French). We are only working in the field of the above 5 industries and have learned our fair share of marketing.

Show me you are interested to become (as lightwave user) published in this book by submitting a small sample-render(s) (less then 250k) to:
info@virtuegraphics.com

Warm regards,

John Koop
VirtueGraphics

[WilliamVaughan]

sounds cool!

[policarpo]

Super Cool!

[robinson]

yeah super cool, where can I order :rolleyes:

btw now i got ya poli, you are hiding in the newtek forum..:D

[policarpo]

heheh...just hanging in the places where the love is. :)

[Triple G]

Originally posted by sidewing
(sorry, no characters...

Oh, well...:(

[sidewing]

Thanks guy's for your support.

We already received several images!

Tripple G: If you have character design that falls under the catagory of "marketing" (if it has been published) please send it anyway...

John

[Triple G]

Hmm...I have a couple of things that might qualify by that description, but unfortunately I don't have the source files to send you a hi-rez enough version. Plus, the images are of licensed characters, so I wouldn't have the rights to distribute them anyway. Oh well...thanks anyway. Maybe next time. :)

[sidewing]

We would like to announce that the deadline for sending in your final renders will be at:

Friday the 22th of August

So, you will have some time...

We already received some awesome looking images today.
Please remember to send in your bio! This book can become a great marketing tool for all of us but we need your contact information and some specifics about your render:

You could use these questions as a direction for thinking...
1. What was the purpose of the image or what was the thought behind it?
2. If you did create it for a company, please give them credit...
3. Did your image contribute to the industry you worked for (i.e. if you create an architectural image for an architect, what beneft was there for the company? - profit increase, pre-sales?)
4. Did you use any references of real life?
5. Why would a company who is going to read your bio and look at your images contact you? What makes you special, what benefit do you offer?
It just needs to be short and sweet...

PLease remember: you want to sound as professional as possible.

If you need help with bio, we could assist you.

Thanks already for all the images!

John

[aurora]

So psyched, finally something for me. Man its good to see you here policarpo. Miss you else where hope I never made that experience bad for you and if I did I apologize.
Now I just need time to clean a couple fo scenes up for this. Man I'm excited!!!

[facial deluxe]

Nice, do you take tv title sequence ?

[sidewing]

Sure.

Send it in.

John

[EmperorPete]

John, I'll put something together for you in the next few days :)

[facial deluxe]

I could prepare several screens, at tv res, showing the evolution of a title seq. (ie: several small screens to make one big pic)
Won't be able to deliver one single pic at high print res.

I'll let you know.

[travis]

I would buy a book with LightWaves best!:) Maybe 2 so i could cut one up.

[kevman3d]

Just curious...

Is there a license agreement when submitting information to VG for this book? My point is, is there any protection for the work of the artist from being misused? I'm not accusing anyone of anything, I'm just being very, very, very cautious...

Great idea however... I hope its all OK and goes well (and then I'll order a copy too!) :)

[facial deluxe]

I think to publish something you need the agreement of the owner(s) of the copyrights. Then you can use the pictures in a proper environment defined by a contract.

[sidewing]

I think to publish something you need the agreement of the owner(s) of the copyrights. Then you can use the pictures in a proper environment defined by a contract.

Good point!

You are right about that. Such an copyright agreement will indeed be used. However, The nice part about the protection laws in Multimedia is such that they are always in favor for the artist who created the material.

To quote the law:
1.
The 1998 Digital Millennium, Copyright Act (DMCA) implements copyright protection in digital environments as well as in print.
The bill makes it a violation of U.S. law to circumvent any copyright protection mechanism in the digital environment and to remove any copyright management information that owners of intellectual properties attached to a digital document.

2.
Also important to know (and in favor for the artist - you):
For contributions to collective works such as a book like this you will have in the contract the transferring rights. In these rights it lets us publish your work. However, all rights remain vested with the artist - you. The transferring rights were passed to stop clients (us) for insisting that transactions transferring only reproduction rights also included the sale of the original.

In plain English: We can use your work on a limited basis (only for print). We do not own your work but are able to use it in the book for selling purposes as well as promoting you.

Try to never ever transfer all rights! You want to be the owner of your own work.

Great point you both brought up!

We will make sure that we have an agreement ready that protects you as the artist and us for publishing it.
We will let you sign such an agreement at the moment we are getting closes to the due date and when you are ready to send in your final high resolution work.
If you want to make a small "signature" on the bottom of the image, please feel free to do so.

We want to make you feel comfortable. As I wrote before: The main purpose is to promote us (independent contractors and small firms) and Lightwave/lightwave-users in general.

Hope this makes you feel better!

John

[Maxx]

Quick question - when you say marketing, does that include just product shots? It's not exactly an ad, but I've got an entire catalog full of LW renders going to press next week. Finally.

[js33]

No offense to your book project but...

...this project and the Expose book look like someone trying to make a quick buck off alot of other peoples hard work.

Cheers,
JS

[sidewing]

Sorry, I pressed "compose new" rather then reply...

Maxx: re: Marketing...Product shots: There is no intention to market the products of our clients. We want to market the power of Lightwave and the strength of us - Lightwave users, as well as showing companies (educating them) of what the possibilities are these day's with respect to 3D.
Question: How many times did you hear from a client: "You can do that?" or "I never thought that I could sell my product/service before building it!". If companies will become more aware of the power of 3D then the demand of creating such work will go up.

Take as an example an architectural firm. They are able to create these days their own 3D renders. Most of the time these renders are not the best quality and representations of what the customer should see. We can do much better and make money in the process.
Wouldn't it be great to take this book filled with examples to a client and show them the possibilities of Lightwave's 3D? If your work has been published in a high quality book filled with great 3D renders it will add value to you as an independent contractor!

JS33: No offence taken!
Creating a full color (4 by 4) book is not an easy project... The costs of publishing a book with limited editions is very high! 500-1000 books limited edition means coming up with the big bucks up front...
No big bug here! Unfortunately we will not be the publisher of Harry Potter

In the book we also will publish stories of how you helped a customer in the process of increasing their sales and/or marketing tools. We are not only asking for high quality images but also for bio's about you and about how you were able to help a client.

Thanks,

John

[colkai]

Originally posted by js33
No offense to your book project but...

...this project and the Expose book look like someone trying to make a quick buck off alot of other peoples hard work.

Cheers,
JS

Or alternatively, they are providing a measn for people doing 3D to get their work seen by thousands in a high quality print format.
It also gives people the chance to look at otherse work and see how they can aspire to get better. Plus it makes one heck of a coffee table focus point!

[sidewing]

Anyone wants to help with naming the book?

It should be something descriptive...

[policarpo]

ILLUMINATED

ILLUMINATION

FORMULA

TECHNIQUE

IRREAL

IRREALITY

SANSFOTO

OBSCURA

REFLECT

[JDaniel]

I don't think it will be as popular as Expose. How can you have LW's best if there are no characters! I wouldn't purchase an art book of commercial renders. Sounds boring. That just me though. The only thing I like to see mechanical cg objects doing is blowing up. :D
1. Architectural
2. Medical
3. Equipment manufacturing
4. Aerospace
5. marketing -------- There are characters in marketing too.--------

[policarpo]

i think they are going for a vertical market that caters to professional companies who deal in this sort of stuff (either purchasing or producing such work).

EXPOSE is more a book about art for art's sake, while this book "insert title" is more about commercial art.

you know...Communications Art versus The Best of Surrealism.

That's my take on it anyway.

The market is big enough to take on such an endeavor.

You know how many logo and design books i have that are so vertically focused? A lot. :)

Plus it's a start.

I say go for it. The worse thing that could happen is that it doesn't sell, and the publisher blows their investment.

[sidewing]

policarpo: I like the first one... Illuminated
What about this: "Illumination of Medical and Mechanical 3D Animation"?

JDaniel: Less popular but more directed to a specific market...
I agree with policarpo that this "more about commercial art book" might still have a huge market.
Character design is awesome (and I truly love it) but I don't think it would fit in this category.

Character design used in marketing is hard to say. Personally I would say yes when there is at least a significant portion of medical or mechanical visible. What do you guy's think?
For example: A 3D hand of a woman holding a perfume bottle.

So far we have received less then 30 images. In order to make this book happening, we need a lot more. Even though this is only the second day fro screening renders, I would love to get a list from people who are committed to send in an image before the due date.

info@virtuegraphics.com

Thanks for all the images so far! They look great.

John

[kevman3d]

Sounds like 'industrial design using LightWave' would be the best description of this book. :)

Some title ideas (Not many, minds a little empty right now):

Industria
Workspace
Designing with Light

As for my concern over agreements and the like was to protect both sides of the coin. I'm curious about VG doing this however - Since VG's business is exactly what you are planning to base the book about, that would make you a competing company to the same people that will be supplying the artwork to you.

You can understand the apprehension someone might have at supplying artwork and design to what is essentially a 'competitive' company. While the use of the actual 'art' may be protected by copyright laws, what about the protection of ideas and concepts?

Without an agreement in place, what governs the opportunity to Plagerise ideas for profit? ie. 'Look at the cool concept this person did! I know a client who would pay mega-bucks for something like this!'

Alternatively, whats to stop someone from accusing VG of plagerism if a piece of work they submitted was similiar to a VG design? ie. 'Hey, that looks like my concept! I submitted work for your book - Hence its possible you guys must have ripped me off!'

My recommendation would be to involve a neutral company in the production of this book, say like a publishing house - It would protect everyone from potential trouble like this...

It of course wouldn't be an issue so much if a lot of this work was broadcast/publically accessible but I'm going to guess people will be supplying material they did for clients that hasn't been publically 'presented', so this could possibly open a can of worms... :(

Sorry for the not-so-positive thoughts again. Just some more areas that may need to be addressed I think - Then again, I could just be overly paranoid! :eek:

[policarpo]

sounds like we need jesus or buddha to step in as mediators. :)












i vote for...8 on its side.

[sidewing]

We should all be able to benefit from this book.
We are indeed in the exact same field as the book we are going to make. This will make it easier for us to promote these industries as well as judging these images.

What do you guy's think about us posting the good once (that most likely will make it in the book) also on the galary?

This would show the progress and would also serve as an invitation for more LW users to send in their material.

Ofcourse we will also ask for every one's permission.

John