AUAR / Product CGI Film

Bringing AUAR's Automated Architecture Microfactory to life.

XO3D created a 3D product animation for AUAR's Microfactory, showing its on-demand automated construction system with the clarity and polish needed for a complex industrial story.

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ClientAUAR

SectorConstruction Robotics / PropTech

ServicesAnimation, CGI, Lifestyle Stills, Motion GIFs

Year2026

Hero film

The full hero film.

Read hero film transcript

The film opens on a bright AUAR shipping container beside the deployed MicroFactory. Wide views reveal the full rail-mounted robot cell, timber stock and a partly assembled wall panel.

The camera moves through overhead and macro angles as robotic arms, grippers and tooling lift, position and work with timber components. The sequence closes on the completed wall panel and a wide view of the full MicroFactory.

There is no spoken dialogue. Music and designed mechanical sound support the animation.

The brief

Communicate an unbuilt industrial system to homebuilders, before a real one existed.

AUAR supplies homebuilders with deployable MicroFactories, styled Micro-Factories in AUAR's own materials, industrial robot cells running their MasterBuilder Physical AI platform to manufacture timber wall and floor panels on site. ABB Robotics is a strategic partner and investor in the company. They needed a full CGI content suite to communicate the Micro-Factory system across their new website, hero animation, stills and looping motion assets, all produced within two months for the launch. It sits inside our broader industrial and robotics CGI work.

The stakes were high. The new site is AUAR's shop window during a period of strong commercial momentum, and the CGI content now runs throughout it, including the homepage automation loop.

The creative challenge sat in a single question: how do you make an industrial robot cell feel approachable and trustworthy to homebuilders, and read as a real, physical product, when it doesn't yet exist in real life? Read more on our approach to technical CGI and pre-manufacture visualisation work.

Project answer

Why use CGI for this project?

01What we made
XO3D built a product CGI film and content suite for AUAR's deployable MicroFactory and its automated timber-panel construction system.
02Why CGI
The industrial robot cell did not yet exist as a finished physical product, so CGI made its scale, movement and construction workflow clear to homebuilders.
03What was delivered
AUAR received a hero animation, website loops, stills and supporting motion assets for its launch and product story.

Deliverables

One production. A full launch content set.

Twenty-four stills, a 36-second hero film and three animated GIFs, all built from a single source and delivered live across auar.io, including the homepage.

24 Stills.

A mixed studio and lifestyle library covering hero angles, macro detail and in-context environments, all rendered from the same source build.

36-Second Hero Animation.

The main product film. A tight cinematic cut that opens the site and communicates the whole MicroFactory system in under a minute.

3 Animated GIFs.

Short looping motion assets built for the homepage automation loop and secondary page moments across auar.io.

Homepage Loop.

A hero loop optimised for web performance, light on file size, premium on first-frame impression.

Creative direction

Five decisions that made the system read as real.

Each decision connects to visible evidence in the finished frames, lighting, scale grounding, detail realism, camera language, adaptive delivery.

$\"AUAR$
01Warm, natural lighting
Approachable, not clinical.
Lighting was kept warm and natural so the system reads as approachable and human, not clinical. Warm tones echo the timber the MicroFactory manufactures and the outdoor settings the product is built for.
$\"AUAR$
02Scale grounding
Real objects, real size.
Real containers, pallets and timber stacks anchor the MicroFactory at its true working size, so the \"factory in a container\" claim is believable at a glance.
$\"AUAR$
03Detail realism
Grippers, fixings, and labels.
Grippers, fixings and component labels were modelled in close detail so an unbuilt machine reads as genuinely manufactured. The credibility lives in the small parts.
$\"AUAR$
04Camera language
Wide to explain, macro to reward.
Wide frames explain the full system; macro frames reward its engineering detail. The product's own geometry was used as a framing device for the more creative compositions.
$\"AUAR$
05Adaptive delivery
The set grew. Launch held.
The deliverable set expanded as the site took shape, 14 stills grew to 24, and the hero film tightened from 60 seconds to a 36-second cut. Everything still landed for launch.

Full still library

The stills that shipped.

The full library delivered for the launch, mixing studio, lifestyle and in-context scale references, all built from the same production.

$\"Bright$

$\"Front$

$\"Wide$

$\"Three-quarter$

$\"AUAR$

$\"Three-quarter$

$\"AUAR$

$\"Side$

$\"Green$

$\"Two$

$\"AUAR$

Scalability

Deployment at scale.

Step through the six deployment configurations, from a single MicroFactory cell to a full multi-cell production site. Select a stage below to explore.

Stage

Motion + interactive

Loops for the web, and one you can spin.

Short, web-optimised motion assets that run on auar.io, plus a drag-to-rotate 360° turntable built from the same production.

D02

D03

Selected shots

The film, shot by shot.

A curated set of sequences from the 36-second hero film, mixing landscape and vertical aspects for launch and social use. Hover any tile to play. The full film also has its own entry in our video gallery.

Shot 01

Shot 02

Shot 03

Shot 04

Shot 05

Shot 06

Shot 07

Shot 08

Shot 09

Shot 10

Shot 11

Shot 12

Short-form cutdowns

Cut for social, paid and secondary placements.

Six focused cutdowns from the same hero source, each engineered to hit a single beat cleanly for the launch's social and paid channels. Hover to play.

Short 01

Short 02

Short 03

Short 04

Short 05

Short 06

Process

Grey to final.

The grey stage is where the composition is finessed. Photo-realistic materials and lighting land only once the camera and staging have been locked. Drag the sliders to compare grey and final side by side, and see the transition captured in motion.

Grey to final, transition loop

Frame feedback, director review capture

Process reel

Inside the AUAR production.

A short reel from the Directors Cut folder covering grey card, material development, lighting and camera studies from the AUAR sprint.

Behind the scenes

Inside the studio.

Storyboarding, frame reviews, lighting checks and shot approvals from the XO3D studio during the AUAR production sprint.

$\"AUAR$

$\"Close-up$

$\"XO3D$

$\"AUAR$

$\"Behind-the-scenes$

Tools

What we built the AUAR film in.

Cinema 4D3D modelling + animation
RedshiftGPU rendering
After EffectsAnimation compositing
PhotoshopStills post-production

The production story

Director's Commentary.

AUAR needed a full CGI content suite for a website launch built around a period of real commercial momentum, press coverage, investment and awards were all landing at the same time, and the site had to reflect that weight.

The scope evolved as AUAR shaped their new site. The still set grew from 14 to 24 assets, and the hero film sharpened from 60 seconds to a tighter 36-second cut. Adapting quickly to the shifting brief while holding the launch date was the production story.

Close client collaboration made the credibility possible. Making an unbuilt product read as genuinely manufactured comes down to the small details, the grippers, the fixings, the labels, and only ships when the client and studio work as one team on those details.

Projects like this, robotics, industrial automation and Physical AI, are the kind of work the studio actively looks for. Communicating an unbuilt robot cell so it feels approachable, trustworthy and real is what a director-led CGI studio is built for.

$\"Connor$ Connor Hamilton-SmithCreative Director, XO3D→

Credits

The team behind the work.

Directed and Produced

XO3D

Executive Creative Director

Thomas Howcroft →

Executive Creative Director

Alex Mann →

Creative Director

Connor Hamilton-Smith →

3D Modeller

Joseph Cletus →

Sound Engineer

Gulliver Tickell →

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Start the conversation

Have a system worth showing before it exists?

Every conversation starts with a brief, not a quote request. Thomas or Alex replies personally, usually within one working day.

Discuss your brief

Bringing AUAR's Automated Architecture Microfactory to life.

Communicate an unbuilt industrial system to homebuilders, before a real one existed.

24 Stills.

36-Second Hero Animation.

3 Animated GIFs.

Homepage Loop.

Approachable, not clinical.

Real objects, real size.

Grippers, fixings, and labels.

Wide to explain, macro to reward.

The set grew. Launch held.

Loops for the web, and one you can spin.

Grey to final.

Director's Commentary.

Have a system worth showing before it exists?