XO3D Studio · Guides
Plain-English answers to the questions product teams actually ask about CGI.
Nineteen guides covering timelines, production technique, supplier choice, and the decisions that shape a CGI commission. Written in plain English by the studio, so where a guide points to an XO3D service, it says so.
XO3D is a director-led product CGI studio, and has produced this work for tech, industrial and premium consumer brands since 2017. These guides capture the questions our team gets asked most often, by marketers scoping their first project, by product directors comparing CGI to photography or AI, by engineering teams asking what actually transfers from CAD, and by buyers still deciding whether a studio is the right kind of supplier at all. Each guide is grounded in our own production process, not a generic content-marketing template, and each one says plainly where we would be the wrong choice.
These guides cover commissioning decisions rather than software tutorials. If you already know you want the work made, see 3D product visualisation. For hands-on tools and technical how-tos, use the XO3D Labs guides.
The principle behind all nineteen guides: we write for the buyer, not the algorithm. Every guide assumes the reader has a real project, a launch in the calendar, a budget being negotiated, a brief to write. The questions answered here are the ones buyers ask before they commission. For shorter practical articles on launches, film and ecommerce imagery, read the Studio Journal.
Start with your decision
What do you need to decide next?
Pick the question in front of you. Each link goes to the guide most likely to settle it. The full collection, grouped by theme, follows below.
New to product CGI
What is Product CGI?What the term means, what product CGI produces and what it needs from you.
How product CGI production works, step by step
The five stages from brief to deliveryThe sequence a project follows, so you know what you will be asked to review and when.
Compare CGI and photography
CGI vs Product PhotographyWhich route suits your product, your source material and the shot you need, including hybrids.
Prepare source files
CAD to CGIWhat your engineering team should send, and which product revision the files actually show.
Choose a partner
Studio, Platform, VFX House or Agency?How to compare suppliers by the named team, relevant work and responsibilities rather than by label.
Write the brief
How to Brief a Product CGI StudioThe audience, product source, outputs and approvers a studio needs to scope the work.
Review work
How to Review CGI WorkWhat each review stage settles, and how to give feedback a studio can act on.
Plan a launch
Product CGI TimelinesThe factors that shape a schedule, so you can work back from the launch date.
Foundations, What Things Are
The vocabulary of product CGI.
Start here if you are new to the field. These guides explain the techniques, terminology and craft that underpins every product CGI brief, from physically based rendering and look development to animatics and sound design.
The Product CGI Lifecycle
Read this when one build may need to serve the product before manufacture, at launch, through retail and ecommerce, and after the first campaign. It helps you plan the asset list before you brief.
Product Truth
The review standard for showing the product you are shipping: name the product revision, the geometry source, the material and colour references and who approves them. A render is a visual, not an engineering or regulatory certificate.
What is Product CGI?
Start here if the term is new. What product CGI is, what it produces, the five stages from brief to delivery and what it needs from you.
What is a 3D Animatic?
A timed moving storyboard built before final renders. Read it before you review a film, so you know what to approve at this stage: sequence, camera and timing.
What is Look Development?
The phase where materials, lighting and the overall visual feel are designed and approved, before final frames are rendered. Read it before you sign off the look.
Sound Design in Product Films
What sound design in a product film contains, and how to brief it alongside the picture rather than after the edit.
The Product CGI Glossary
Sixty-one terms you may hear in a CGI production meeting, defined in plain English, from animatic to Z-depth pass. Keep it open while you read a proposal.
Scope & Production
How a CGI project actually comes together.
Whether you are scoping your first project or building a multi-year content programme, these guides answer the question Tom hears most often: what shapes the scope of a project, and what should you expect from production?
How Product CGI Is Scoped
The seven variables that shape a project, such as model complexity, deliverable count and asset reuse. This is the studio’s investment page rather than a guide, so it is not counted in the nineteen.
Animation vs Still Renders
Decide whether a moment needs motion, a still or both, by what the audience has to see. Both can come from the same approved 3D build.
CGI vs Alternatives
Which production approach actually fits.
Three head-to-head comparisons. Each guide takes the alternative seriously, names the cases where it wins, and is honest about where CGI is the wrong tool.
CGI vs Product Photography
Compare the two routes for your own product, source material and shot: where photography suits, where CGI suits, and where a hybrid of both fits. With a capability matrix.
CGI vs AI-Generated Product Images
Compare what your launch images need: accurate product reference, editability, consistency across a range, rights and reuse. What current AI tools do well, and seven checks before you rely on them for a product.
CGI Studio vs Render Farm
Decide who owns the creative work. A render farm supplies computing time; a studio directs and makes the images. How to tell which one your project needs.
Commissioning CGI, Practical Decisions
How to choose, brief, and review the work.
The decisions that shape every successful CGI commission. Choosing the right studio, writing a brief the team can actually work from, reviewing the work at the right moments, and planning realistic timelines.
Studio, Platform, VFX House or Agency?
Six supplier models can produce 3D product content, and their capabilities overlap. The questions to ask about the named team, relevant work, source files, review and rights before you choose.
How to Choose a Product CGI Studio
Eight questions to put to any studio, what to look for in a portfolio, and the evidence that matters beyond the final frame.
CAD to CGI
What transfers from engineering CAD, where the pipeline actually breaks, what dimensional accuracy does and does not mean, and what your engineering team should send.
How to Brief a Product CGI Studio
What an experienced CGI brief actually contains. The audience, product source, outputs and review questions that help define a clear production brief.
How to Review CGI Work
The four review stages in a CGI production, the decision each one settles, and how to give feedback a studio can act on.
Product CGI Timelines, What to Expect
The factors that shape a scoped schedule: source readiness, the number of outputs, feedback and the first asset you need. Typical windows are examples; your schedule is agreed for your project.
Is a Configurator Worth Building?
The six gates that decide feasibility: variant arithmetic, the real-time budget, where it runs, who maintains it, and when a 360 viewer is the better answer.
When Do You Need Interactive 3D?
Interactive viewers, AR product placement, configurators. The criteria for deciding whether your product range justifies the production investment.
Before you brief
What to have ready.
Once the guides have settled the main decisions, these seven points turn them into a brief a studio can scope. Gaps are fine: say what is still undecided.
- The product revision the work should show, and where the geometry comes from (CAD, drawings or a sample).
- The intended audience and the one thing they need to understand.
- The assets you need, such as a film, stills, an interactive or AR.
- The channels the work will appear on.
- The earliest date you need a first asset.
- References for the look, the materials and any movement.
- The named person who approves product accuracy and the creative.
Use the CGI brief template to write it down, and compare relevant work to show the treatment you have in mind.
Your next project
Find the right starting point.
Use the guides to resolve the next production decision. Then compare relevant work and bring the confirmed requirements into your brief.
A route to consider
Launch Visuals
A directed launch suite: film, stills and channel versions, scoped around the product story and release plan.
Bring these three things.
- What is your product?
- What does the audience need to understand?
- Where and when will the work appear?
Start with an outline. We review the product, intended outputs and timing before agreeing the production scope.