XO3D Studio · Guide
The Product CGI Glossary.
35 terms used in product CGI production — defined clearly for buyers, brand teams and agencies commissioning visual content.
CGI production has a specific vocabulary. Studios use these terms in briefs, proposals and production updates. This glossary defines each term clearly so every conversation starts from the same page. Terms are organised alphabetically. Each definition is written for a marketing professional, not a technical specialist.
A
- # Animatic
- A timed, moving version of a storyboard — a rough animation showing exact camera choreography, product movement, and edit timing before final rendering begins. Used to obtain client approval of creative decisions before production costs are committed.
- # AR Model (Augmented Reality Model)
- A 3D model file that, when viewed through a smartphone camera, overlays the product onto the real physical environment at correct scale. Delivered as USDZ for iOS devices and GLB for Android. Used in e-commerce for "view in your space" product experiences.
- # Asset
- Any deliverable produced during CGI production — a 3D model file, a rendered still image, an animation file, a sound design stem. "The 3D asset" typically refers to the complete 3D model, materials, and lighting setup from which all deliverables are produced.
B
- # Bake / Baking
- The pre-computation of lighting, shadows, ambient occlusion, or texture detail into a static texture map for performance. Used to lock high-quality lighting into models intended for web, AR, or real-time delivery where live computation would be too expensive.
C
- # CAD File
- Computer-Aided Design file — the engineering source data from which 3D CGI models are built. Common formats include STEP (.stp), IGES (.igs), SolidWorks (.sldprt), Rhino (.3dm), and Fusion 360. High-quality CAD data is the ideal starting point for accurate product CGI.
- # Camera Choreography
- The deliberate directorial planning of how the camera moves through a product film — every angle, movement, speed change, and cut. At XO3D, camera choreography is treated as an editorial instrument: each movement is a deliberate creative decision that tells the viewer something about the product.
- # Colour Grade / Grade
- The post-production process of adjusting the colour balance, contrast, saturation, and tone of rendered images or film to achieve a consistent, intentional visual look. Grading gives a product film its emotional register — warm, cool, clinical, aspirational — and ensures consistency across all deliverables.
- # Compositing
- Combining multiple visual elements — a product render, a background environment, reflections, shadows — into a single final image. Compositing is used to place CGI products into lifestyle environments and to add environmental elements that are more efficiently produced in 2D than in 3D.
- # Creative Direction
- The overarching visual and emotional vision for a CGI project — the answer to "what should the viewer feel about this product?" Creative direction governs all subsequent decisions: camera, lighting, materials, editing, sound. At XO3D, every project has a named Creative Director responsible for this vision.
D
- # Displacement Map
- A texture that adds genuine geometric detail to a 3D surface — fine surface textures, knurling, fabric weave, machined patterns — without requiring that detail to be modelled into the mesh geometry. Used to add micro-surface detail that would be impractical to model directly.
E
- # Exploded View
- An animation or still image showing a product's components separated and spaced apart from their assembled positions, revealing the internal structure and assembly sequence. Used in technical sales materials, investor presentations, and product documentation.
F
- # Frame Rate
- The number of individual frames rendered per second in an animation. 24fps is the cinematic standard. 30fps is common for digital marketing. 60fps is used for slow-motion sequences or high-fluidity product films. Frame rate is fixed at the start of production because it affects render budget directly.
G
- # GLB / GLTF
- GL Transmission Format — an open-standard 3D file format designed for web and AR use. GLB is the binary version. Used for Shopify's native 3D product viewer and Android AR Quick Look. XO3D delivers GLB files as standard for any interactive or AR product brief.
H
- # HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image)
- A 360° photographic environment image used to provide realistic, physically consistent lighting in CGI scenes. An HDRI captures the full range of light in a real environment and projects it onto the 3D scene. XO3D builds custom lighting rigs per project rather than relying on HDRI environments alone.
I
- # IES Light Profile
- A file format containing the photometric data of a real-world light fixture — its exact light distribution, intensity falloff, and beam angle. Used in product CGI when accurate replication of a specific physical luminaire is required, such as showroom lighting or theatrical product reveals.
K
- # Keyframing
- The animation technique of defining the position, rotation, and properties of objects at specific moments in time, with the software interpolating smooth movement between those points. The foundation of all 3D animation production.
- # Keyshot
- A physically accurate rendering software used by XO3D as the primary render engine for product CGI. Keyshot is widely regarded as the industry standard for product visualisation due to its physically based rendering accuracy, material quality, and production pipeline efficiency.
L
- # Look Development (Look Dev)
- The production phase in which materials, lighting, and environmental context are built and refined until they accurately represent the intended visual result — before final rendering begins. The stage at which visual quality is determined. XO3D always shares Look Dev references with clients for approval before committing to final render.
M
- # Material / Shader
- In CGI, a material (or shader) defines how a surface interacts with light — its colour, reflectance, roughness, metallic properties, transparency, and subsurface scattering. Materials are the digital equivalent of physical surface finishes. At XO3D, every material is built from physical reference, not preset libraries.
- # Mechanism Animation
- An animation showing how a product's internal mechanism operates — hinges articulating, components assembling, springs compressing, flows moving through a system. Requires engineering accuracy: the mechanism must animate to the correct operational sequence as well as look visually compelling.
- # Mesh / Geometry
- The 3D geometric structure of a model — the network of polygons that defines its shape. "Clean mesh" refers to well-structured geometry that renders correctly and is suitable for animation. Poor mesh quality produces visual artefacts in renders and limitations in what can be animated.
N
- # Normal Map
- A texture that encodes surface detail as RGB-stored vectors, simulating bumps, grooves, and fine relief without adding geometry. Combined with displacement maps, it produces the appearance of complex surface detail at a fraction of the render cost. Industry-standard for tactile materials like brushed metal, woven fabric and knurled controls.
O
- # OBJ File (.obj)
- A widely supported open 3D model format containing geometry, UV coordinates, and material references. Older and simpler than glTF, but still common as an interchange format between modelling software. Accepted alongside STEP as a starting source format when CAD data isn't available.
P
- # Packshot
- A product image on a pure white or transparent background, showing the product in isolation without any environmental context. The standard format for e-commerce product listings, retail catalogues, and press kit assets. In CGI, packshots are produced by rendering against a white ground plane with controlled ambient light.
- # PBR (Physically Based Rendering)
- A rendering methodology that calculates how light interacts with surfaces based on their actual physical properties — reflectance, roughness, metallic content — rather than simplified artistic approximations. PBR produces imagery that looks consistent under any lighting condition because the material properties are physically accurate. The standard approach for premium product CGI.
- # Polygon Count
- The number of geometric faces that make up a 3D model. High polygon count models contain more geometric detail and produce more accurate renders but require more processing time. Web and AR models use lower polygon counts to ensure acceptable file size and load performance. XO3D optimises polygon count separately for render, web, and AR deliverables.
- # Post-Production
- The production phase after rendering is complete — colour grading, compositing, sound design integration, format export, and final delivery preparation. In product CGI, post-production typically accounts for 15–25% of total production time and has a significant effect on final visual quality.
Q
- # Quad Topology
- A clean 3D mesh constructed primarily from four-sided polygons (quads) rather than triangles. Quad topology animates and deforms cleanly, subdivides predictably, and is the production-ready standard at XO3D for any model destined for animation or surface refinement.
R
- # Ray Tracing
- The rendering technique that simulates the physical path of light rays through a scene — calculating reflections, refractions, shadows, and global illumination by tracing millions of individual light rays per frame. Ray tracing produces the most physically accurate and visually convincing CGI renders. Keyshot uses ray tracing as its core rendering method.
- # Render Farm
- A network of computers working in parallel to process CGI render jobs. Render farms dramatically reduce render times for complex scenes and high-frame-count animations by distributing work across many processors simultaneously. Not the same as a product CGI studio — a render farm processes files but does not provide creative direction or production management.
- # Revision Round
- A structured feedback cycle in which the client reviews a production deliverable and submits consolidated feedback for the studio to implement. XO3D includes two revision rounds as standard in all projects. Revisions are managed through Frame.io (video) or annotated PDFs (stills) to ensure feedback is precise and traceable.
S
- # Social Format Suite
- A set of format variants of the same CGI content produced for different social media platforms: 16:9 (YouTube, website), 9:16 (Reels, Stories, TikTok), 1:1 (Instagram feed), 4:5 (Facebook feed optimised). Produced from the same 3D render at the appropriate crop and composition for each platform.
- # Sound Design
- The creation or selection of audio — music, product sound effects, environmental sounds, and silence — for a product CGI film. Sound design is treated as a production element at XO3D, agreed in pre-production alongside the visual direction. Bespoke sound design is recommended over stock music for any work where audio quality reflects directly on the brand.
- # Specular Highlight
- The bright spot of reflected light on a shiny or semi-shiny surface — the point where a light source reflects most directly toward the viewer. The behaviour of specular highlights (how sharp, how bright, how they move as the viewing angle changes) is one of the strongest signals of material quality in product CGI and one of the primary tells of poorly reconstructed materials.
- # STEP File (.stp / .step)
- Standard for the Exchange of Product model data — one of the most common CAD exchange formats used to transfer 3D geometry between different engineering software applications. STEP files are the most common starting point for product CGI built from engineering data and are accepted by XO3D as a primary source file format.
- # Storyboard
- A sequence of drawn or digitally composed frames showing the planned camera positions, product positions, and key moments of a CGI film — produced before any 3D production begins. The storyboard is the primary creative approval document for product films and is reviewed and approved by the client before animatic production begins.
- # Subsurface Scattering (SSS)
- The optical phenomenon where light penetrates a translucent material, scatters within it, and exits at a different point — producing a soft, glowing quality. Visible in skin, marble, wax, certain plastics, natural cane, and many food and drink products. Accurately simulating SSS is technically demanding and is one of the distinguishing marks of high-quality material reconstruction.
T
- # Texture Map
- A 2D image applied to a 3D surface to add colour, pattern, or surface detail. Different types of texture maps serve different purposes: diffuse maps add colour, normal maps add apparent surface relief without changing geometry, roughness maps vary how reflective different areas of a surface appear.
U
- # USDZ
- Universal Scene Description Zip — Apple's format for AR content on iOS devices. When a USDZ file is linked from a webpage, iOS Safari displays an "AR" button that opens the product model in Apple's AR Quick Look viewer. XO3D delivers USDZ files alongside GLB for all AR product brief deliverables.
- # UV Mapping / UV Unwrap
- The process of flattening a 3D model's surface into a 2D map so that textures can be applied accurately without distortion. Clean UV mapping ensures that surface textures — label artwork, material patterns, engraved text — sit correctly on the product surface without stretching or misalignment.
V
- # Viewport
- The 3D software window showing the scene in real time during production — typically showing the model in a simplified, unrendered view for performance reasons. A "viewport screenshot" showing work-in-progress is often used in pre-production reviews and behind-the-scenes process content.
W
- # Wireframe
- A representation of a 3D model showing only the edges of its geometry, without surfaces or materials. Used during model review to verify topology quality, polygon distribution, and edge flow. A 'wireframe over render' overlay is a standard pre-production sign-off asset at XO3D.
Z
- # Z-Depth Pass
- A grayscale render pass encoding the distance from camera to each pixel. Used in compositing to drive depth-of-field blur, atmospheric fog, and depth-based colour correction in post-production. Output as an EXR or 32-bit TIFF to preserve precision.
FAQ
Glossary questions.
Is this glossary specific to XO3D's workflow or industry-standard?
Both. The terms here are used across the product CGI industry — they are not XO3D-specific. Where XO3D's specific approach to a term differs from the general industry default (for example, XO3D's insistence on custom PBR materials rather than library presets), that is noted in the definition. Otherwise, these definitions reflect standard industry usage.
What's the difference between CGI and VFX?
Visual effects (VFX) refers to the integration of computer-generated elements with live-action footage — compositing CGI spaceships into a real film, for example. Product CGI typically produces standalone rendered imagery without live-action footage involved, though product CGI composited into lifestyle photography is common. The terms are often used interchangeably in casual usage but refer to distinct disciplines in professional production contexts.
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This glossary covers the terms most commonly encountered in product CGI production. If you encounter a term not listed here, send it to us — we'll add a definition. The goal is a complete reference for anyone commissioning product CGI.
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