XO3D Studio · Process
Director-led. Five stages. A creative decision at every step.
Every XO3D project follows the same five-stage process. Every stage has a named Creative Director. Every stage produces a deliverable the client signs off on before the next begins.
At XO3D, a Creative Director leads every project from first brief to final frame, taking the same creative decisions that an experienced film director would take on a live-action shoot: what the work should communicate, how the product should be framed, what the camera does, how the lighting reads, what the audio adds, what the audience feels at the end.
The five-stage process below exists to make sure those decisions happen at the right moments, with the right inputs, signed off by the right people. For how they map onto the general stages of animation production, see our stages guide.
What the five stages produce is the Master Asset: one accurate build, made once to production standard, from which the film, the campaign stills, the social formats, the interactive and the AR are all then made. The governance on this page is not separate from that build. It is how the build is held true, and it applies the same way whether the commission is a single product or a continuous Visual Content Partnership. For how that one build carries into later work, see the product CGI lifecycle.
The Five Stages
From brief to final frame.
Four to eight weeks for a typical launch, with the durations below as the usual shape of it. Two things move that total. Production scales with the deliverable count, so a hero film plus a full social and stills suite sits at the top of the range while one hero deliverable sits at the bottom. And approvals sit on your side of the line: the schedule assumes each gate is signed off inside the agreed window, and a late approval moves the delivery date rather than compressing the work.
A compressed timeline is workable on a reduced scope, with fewer deliverables, creative locked earlier and additional studio capacity scoped in. Compressing the same scope into half the time is not something we will agree to, because the only ways to do it are to cut the direction, cut the review or cut the finishing.
- STAGE 01
Brief & pre-production
3 to 5 days
Discovery workshop with the client team. Reference review. Source-file audit. Commercial context understood. Creative direction proposed. Brief sign-off before any production begins.
Output: A written creative direction document the client agrees to.
- STAGE 02
Look development
1 to 1.5 weeks
3D model build. Material development from product references and samples where supplied. Lighting rig design. Colour set to the value you specify. Where you can supply a physical sample or swatch, the render is compared against it here. One material test render produced and signed off. This is the moment that determines whether the final imagery looks real or rendered.
Output: Approved look-dev frame, on the actual product, at full resolution.
- STAGE 03
Production
2 to 3 weeks
Hero film animation, stills setups, social format production, interactive viewer build. Review rounds run in Frame.io, three on stills and four on anything including video. No silent revisions. Every change tracked, timestamped, signed off.
Output: All deliverables in draft for review.
- STAGE 04
Finishing
3 to 5 days
Colour grade, with the approved product colour held through it rather than traded away for a look. Sound design where applicable. Master file production. Format-specific encoding for every output channel. Optional brand legal review window.
Output: Approved final masters across every format.
- STAGE 05
Delivery & archive
2 to 3 days
Full deliverables package, organised by format, with naming convention, channel specifications and rights documentation. The commissioned 3D model is handed over with the final work. Our production files stay with the studio and are archived, so a returning brief can build on what has already been approved.
Output: Launch-ready files plus the commissioned 3D model, yours to use and build on.
What the delivery stage hands over, file by file, is set out in delivery formats and planning windows.
A real project
One project through the gates.
The AUAR MicroFactory film shows what the stages above look like on a real job. AUAR supplied the model, movement references and brand guidance. Those informed a storyboard, planned on the studio wall before any shot was built.
The shots were then set up in grey, with plain materials, so the camera and staging could be agreed first. Materials and light went in only after that. The two frames below are the same shot, A05, at both points. Between them the camera angle changed as well, which is the kind of decision the grey stage exists for. The grey pass decides composition and staging. It does not prove dimensions; those come from the supplied model.
This is one project's record, not a fixed template. The stages and review points for your project are agreed at brief. AUAR MicroFactory: from storyboard to final film
Product truth
Holding the product true.
Five things have to be true before a frame is worth looking at, and each one is held at a named point in the process above. This is not craft for its own sake. A viewer cannot tell you why a render feels wrong, but they register it, and what they do with that feeling is trust the product less. Held properly, the opposite happens: the product reads as real, then as considered, then as worth wanting. Read the fuller argument in what product truth means.
Product truth, carried across the whole launch.
| What has to be true | How it is held | When it is checked |
|---|---|---|
| Geometry and proportion | Built from your CAD and engineering drawings rather than approximated from photographs. Conflicts or gaps in the source are raised before modelling starts, not after. | Source audit at stage 01, model build at stage 02. |
| Material and finish | Developed or adapted against the product photographs, finish specifications and physical samples where supplied. A library starting point is checked and adjusted for the actual finish. | Look development, stage 02. |
| Colour | Matched to your physical sample, Pantone, RAL or brand codes, material specification or approved reference photography, and kept consistent across every angle, lighting setup and output format. | Set at stage 02 and held through the stage 04 grade. |
| Lighting | A rig designed for this product, this sector and your brand language. Not a studio preset carried over from the last job. | Look development, stage 02. |
| Verification | Where you can supply a physical sample or swatch, the render is compared against it directly rather than judged from memory. | Before look development is signed off. |
Questions to ask
How XO3D works, and what to ask any studio.
Each row is how we run that stage, and a question worth putting to any studio you are comparing, us included.
| Stage | XO3D | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Brief | Creative Director joins the brief workshop and writes the direction document | Who writes the creative direction, and who will you speak to during production? |
| Look dev | Materials developed and checked against the references for this specific product | Are materials checked against references for your product, or applied from a library unchanged? |
| Lighting | Per-project lighting rig designed for this product, sector and brand language | Is the lighting set up for this product, or carried over from another job? |
| Production | A deliberately limited number of concurrent projects, each with named creative direction | How many projects run at once, and who leads yours creatively? |
| Review | Frame.io: three rounds on stills, four with video | How are notes recorded against a frame, and how many rounds are included? |
| Delivery | Final films, stills and the commissioned 3D model are yours on full payment; production files stay with the studio | What do you own at the end, and what stays with the studio? |
Who's Involved
The team on your brief.
Every project is staffed with a Creative Director, a Senior 3D Lead and the production team specific to the brief. The Creative Director is your point of contact for creative direction. The Managing Director is your point of contact for commercial and scheduling. The team is named at brief sign-off. There is no account-handler-to-production handover.
Every programme has a Creative Director. Not a project manager. A creative decision at every step, from brief to final frame. This is what separates a studio from a render farm.
Accountability
Where the work stops until someone approves it.
Five gates run through the process above. At each one, production halts until the named approver has signed off. Pulled out here in one place, because knowing who decides what is usually more useful than a stage diagram. To see where films go wrong, gate by gate, read our ten common mistakes.
| Gate | What is approved | Who signs it off |
|---|---|---|
| Brief sign-off | The written creative direction, the scope and the deliverables list. | You, before any production begins. |
| Look development | One material test render, on your actual product, at full resolution. | You. This is the frame that determines what the final work looks like. |
| Review rounds | In Frame.io: three on stills and four on anything including video. The number for your project is in your proposal. | You, with consolidated feedback. No silent revisions between rounds. |
| Legal or brand review | An optional window before master file production begins. | Your legal or brand team, where your organisation needs one. |
| Delivery | Final masters, every format, naming convention and rights documentation. | You, against the deliverables list agreed at brief stage. |
Responsibility
Ours, and yours.
Most delivery problems are not craft problems. They are two organisations each assuming the other held something. This is the split we work to.
| Area | XO3D | You |
|---|---|---|
| Creative direction and craft | A named Creative Director accountable from brief to final frame, not a project manager passing messages. | Approval at each gate, and one named decision-maker who can give it. |
| Product accuracy | Builds to the CAD and references supplied, and raises conflicts or gaps before modelling rather than after. | The best available CAD, drawings and material specifications, plus a named technical reviewer. |
| Product claims and regulatory | Represents what your approved source material supports, and no more than that. | The claims themselves, and regulatory acceptance where it applies. |
| Schedule | The production dates in the agreed scope. | Approvals inside the agreed windows. A late approval moves the delivery date, and we will say so at the time rather than at the end. |
| Rights and usage | Retains its production files: scene setups, rigs, render configurations and proprietary tools. | Owns the delivered work and the commissioned 3D model on full payment, for your own commercial use. |
| Measurement | What is worth measuring for this commission, and what will still be readable later. | The analytics, commerce and CRM systems it gets read in. |
Confidentiality, file handling, contributor terms and retention are set out on trust and security. Rights and ownership are in clauses 8 to 10 of our terms and conditions. Where the work connects to your own systems, see integrations.
Common questions
Timing, speed and revisions.
How long does a product CGI project take?
Four to seven weeks for a hero film, and six to ten weeks for a launch suite of film, stills and social formats. The usual shape is 3 to 5 days on brief and pre-production, 1 to 1.5 weeks on look development, 2 to 3 weeks on production, 3 to 5 days on finishing and 2 to 3 days on delivery. Production is the part that scales with the deliverable count.
Can you turn it round faster?
On a reduced scope, yes, and that is a real option: one hero deliverable rather than the full suite, creative locked earlier, fewer revision rounds, and additional studio capacity scoped in. Tell us the launch date and we will work backwards from it, and if the date is real and the scope is right-sized we will meet it. Compressing the same scope into half the time is not something we will agree to, because the only ways to do it are to cut the creative direction, cut the review stages or cut the finishing, and the output suffers in all three cases. If a date cannot move and a scope cannot reduce, we say so before you sign anything rather than at delivery.
What happens if our approvals run late?
The delivery date moves, and we tell you at the time rather than at the end. The schedule is built backwards from your launch date on the assumption that each gate is signed off inside its agreed window, because look development cannot start before the brief is approved and production cannot start before the look is. The single most useful thing you can do for a tight timeline is name one person who can give each approval.
How many revision rounds are included?
Three rounds on stills and four on anything including video, as stated in your proposal. Smaller change requests are handled inside those rounds. A material change of scope is quoted as additional work with the reasoning stated, rather than absorbed silently and recovered somewhere you cannot see.
When something goes wrong
Because sometimes it does.
Every studio has projects that wobble. These are our three answers to what happens next, and they are worth asking any studio you are considering.
| If | What happens |
|---|---|
| You are not happy with the work | It goes to a founder. Tom Howcroft or Alex Mann picks it up directly, not a complaints process and not an account manager. At a studio this size the person who can actually change something is one conversation away, and that is the point of working with one. |
| A delivery date is at risk | You hear as soon as we know, with the revised date and what caused it. Not at the point of delivery, and not once it is already too late to change the plan around it. That applies whether the cause is ours, a late approval, or a change in scope. |
| We missed the direction you approved | We fix it, within the agreed scope. The included revision rounds are for refinement, not for correcting our own miss, so putting right work that has departed from the direction you signed off is not a chargeable extra. |
What the internal quality check needs to catch
Connor checks the greycard for composition, model intersections, camera and part movement, and timing against voiceover or music. A landscape composition also needs checking in the required vertical frame: important action can disappear when the aspect ratio changes.
At the material-still stage, he checks whether lighting reveals the texture, whether the finish behaves as intended and whether earlier product corrections have actually been made. One review caught both a lighting problem and outstanding detail changes before the still went to the client.
The practical handover is a clear record of what has been checked, what remains open and which reference supports the decision. Our guide to reviewing CGI explains what to judge at each stage.
From a production discussion, edited for clarity.
Your next project
Build the review around the product.
Creative and technical approvals answer different questions. Agree who reviews the product, who reviews the treatment and which decisions must be settled before the next stage.
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.
- Who approves the product?
- Who approves creative direction?
- What review dates are available?
Start with an outline. We review the product, intended outputs and timing before agreeing the production scope.