XO3D Studio · Methodology
The product CGI lifecycle.
A product model can support more than its first campaign. The next brief may need a new composition, a moving camera or a lighter real-time version, while retaining the approved product geometry and material references. These four stages explain what can carry forward and what needs to be checked for each use.
The studio behind this guide
What one build carries
XO3D builds an accurate 3D product asset from your source material, called the Master Asset. It can support pre-manufacture imagery, launch films and stills, retail rollout and later campaigns. Each new use is checked against the approved product and the destination’s technical requirements. Come to us when the product needs a consistent visual treatment across those uses; routine catalogue volume is a different kind of brief.
How XO3D compares to the other five supplier modelsThe shared source
The product
remains the
reference.
The build. At XO3D it is called the Master Asset: one accurate 3D build, produced once to production standard, from which every deliverable is then made. Film, campaign stills, social formats, press, print, interactive and AR all come from the same source.
That is why a launch looks like one thing across every channel instead of like five suppliers, and it is why the stages below are stages rather than separate projects. Each one asks something different of the same asset.
Two ways an existing build carries forward.
For Baresi & Caine’s Stella Luce, the starting deliverable was a range of website images. XO3D then developed the existing watch assets into a marketing film, using camera movement and close-up reveals to show the face, case and finish.
AUAR’s MicroFactory launch followed a different route: selected film compositions supplied website stills, while additional views showed the robot inside a factory. The shared scene did not make every shot suitable for every use.
Before commissioning the next output, decide whether the existing composition already explains the product or whether the new placement needs another viewpoint, movement or edit. Reusing the build and reusing the finished image are different decisions.
What makes the asset able to carry is not scale or cleverness. It is accuracy at the point of construction. A model built from your CAD, with materials reconstructed from physical reference and colour held to a specified value, can be taken somewhere nobody planned for. A model approximated by eye cannot, and the failure shows up at the stage you did not anticipate. That standard is set out in product truth, and the governance that holds it is on process. The product rendering guide shows how one build becomes finished stills.
Production evidence
What carried forward in real productions.
Two different clients, two different routes. They are separate projects, not one model's history.
AUAR: one approved view, then the finished frame.
The AUAR case study shows each shot composed in a grey pass first. Materials and lighting went in once the camera and staging were locked. In the A05 pair below, the camera angle also changed between grey and final. The comparison shows what the grey stage decides. It does not prove dimensions, which come from the supplied model.
- Source asset. The supplied model, movement references and brand guidance.
- Approved view. A camera and staging signed off in the grey pass.
- Additional view. A new placement may need its own camera, not a crop of an existing frame.
- Final placement. Materials, light and output set for where the image or film will run.
An illustrative sequence drawn from the AUAR record, not a schedule.
Baresi & Caine: website images, then a film.
For the Stella Luce, the first deliverable was a range of website images. XO3D then extended that work into a marketing film. Watch the Stella Luce film.
Reuse
What carries forward, and what needs checking.
An approved build is a starting point. The next output still needs its own suitability check.
| Next requirement | Reusable starting point | What must be checked | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch still | Approved geometry and material references | The camera view, lighting and composition for the placement | Product still renders |
| Film | Approved geometry, materials and the agreed look | Camera movement, shot order and lighting across the frames | Product CGI films |
| New camera or composition | The approved product as it stands | Whether an existing frame already explains the product, or the placement needs a new view | Brief a new view |
| New colour or component | The parts and finishes that have not changed | The changed part or finish is updated and approved before it is shown | Product truth |
| Ecommerce derivative | The approved build and look | The listing or retailer size, format and channel requirements | CGI for ecommerce |
| Interactive or AR derivative | Approved geometry and material references | The real-time budget: geometry, materials or file packaging may need adapting | Product interactives |
Commissioning
Bring the next use into the first brief.
If later uses are named at the start, the first build can be planned with them in mind. Bring these to the first conversation:
- Product and source references: the current CAD or drawings, with their revision, and the finish references.
- Intended outputs: the first deliverable, and any later ones you already expect.
- Placement: where each output will appear, from a launch page to a retailer listing.
- Known product changes: colours, components or successors that are already planned.
- Deadline: the date the first approved output is needed.
- Approval contact: who signs off the product and who signs off the creative work.
To set these out, prepare the product brief. To list the outputs, plan the launch asset list with the free XO3D Labs planner, which maps each asset to its role, placement, references and approver. Then tell us what the product needs next.
Four stages
What each one asks for.
The stages are commercial rather than technical. They describe where a product is in its life and what the visual work has to do there, not what software is open.
Stage one
Before the product exists
There is CAD, there are engineering drawings, there is a material and finish intent, and there is nothing to photograph. This is the earliest point at which a product can be shown, and for a launch that depends on pre-orders, investor conviction or a retailer buying decision, it is often the point at which the money moves.
The approved geometry and material references become the source for later work. Each new use still needs a suitability check: a different close-up, changed product or real-time output can require further preparation.
Stage two
At launch
A launch can draw on the shared build for its hero film, campaign stills, social formats and press imagery. Each output still needs a suitable camera view, lighting and composition. An existing film frame may work as a still; another placement may need a new view, as it did for AUAR’s factory-use imagery.
The visual language is settled here. Lighting, camera language and grade become the reference that later work is matched against.
Stage three
Through rollout
Retail listings, marketplace imagery, a 360 viewer, a configurator, an AR placement. This is where the same product meets a different set of technical constraints, because a real-time surface has a budget that a rendered frame does not. What changes is the derivative, not the source.
The optimised, real-time derivatives are made here, from the same build. They are a different file, not a different product.
Stage four
After the first campaign
A second market, a seasonal push, a new colourway, a retailer refresh, a successor product that shares components with the one before it. Review the existing build against the next brief: a new composition may reuse the product as it stands, while a changed component or finish needs updating before it is shown. You own the delivered work and the commissioned model outright, with no limit on medium, territory or duration, and projects are archived indefinitely.
An archived build provides a starting point for a returning brief. The scope depends on what has changed in the product and what the next deliverable needs.
Boundaries
What this
is not.
- It is not an efficiency argument
- This describes what one build can go on to serve, not what it costs or saves. XO3D does not publish rates, savings or efficiency figures, and any number attached to this elsewhere is not ours. What a commission is judged on is set out on measurement.
- It is not catalogue production
- One product carried across a launch’s channels, markets and variants is a different problem from producing imagery at SKU scale. Range and batch volume is deliberately out of scope here, and the exclusions are stated on investment.
- It is not automatic
- A later stage still needs direction, review and sign-off. Check which parts of the existing build remain suitable and which need adapting. Reuse does not remove those decisions.
- Not every product needs all four
- Plenty of work is a single stage, and starting at stage one is not a prerequisite for anything that follows. The lifecycle describes what is available, not a sequence you are committed to.
The argument is about what becomes possible and what a later brief involves. Where a commission is judged on a commercial outcome, the data sits in your analytics rather than ours, and measurement sets out what a studio can and cannot see.
Related
Where to
go next.
Common questions
Straight
answers.
What is the product CGI lifecycle?
It is the four stages a single accurate 3D build can serve across a product’s commercial life: before manufacture, at launch, through retail and ecommerce rollout, and after the first campaign has finished. At XO3D that build is called the Master Asset. The point of naming the stages is that the geometry and material work done at the earliest one is the same work every later stage draws on, so what happens at the start decides how much of the rest has to be made again.
Does one 3D build really serve all four stages?
A shared source can support several stages, but each output needs to be checked against its use. A rendered film and a real-time AR model have different technical requirements. The approved product references carry forward while the geometry, materials or file packaging may need adapting for the destination. Agree those requirements before promising that an existing asset is ready to use unchanged.
What has to be decided early for the asset to carry?
Three things. The geometry has to come from your CAD rather than an approximation, because a model rebuilt by eye cannot be trusted at a later stage that nobody anticipated. The materials have to be matched to physical reference, not left as library defaults. And brand colour has to be held to a specified value. Those are the checks set out in product truth, and they are what makes a build durable rather than merely finished.
Can XO3D start at a later stage than the first?
Yes, and most commissions do. A product already in market can have a Master Asset built from its CAD at any point, and the same four stages are available from there. Starting later costs you the earlier stages rather than the quality of the build.
What does this not cover?
It does not cover what the work did to your commercial numbers. XO3D can state what a build produced and where it was used, because that is our own production record, but conversion, returns and revenue sit in your analytics rather than ours and we will not claim them. It also does not cover catalogue or SKU-scale imagery, which is a different problem with different economics.
Start with one product
Tell us where
the product is.
Send the product, the source files you have and which stage you are at. We will tell you what one build would carry from here, and say plainly where a later stage is not worth commissioning yet.
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