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.
Commodity CGI studios sell hours and treat the brief as input to a rendering pipeline. XO3D works the opposite way. 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.
The Five Stages
From brief to final frame.
- STAGE 01
Brief & pre-production
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
3D model build. Material reconstruction from physical reference. Lighting rig design. 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
Hero film animation, stills setups, social format production, interactive viewer build. Two formal review rounds in Frame.io, both attended by the Creative Director. No silent revisions. Every change tracked, timestamped, signed off.
Output: All deliverables in draft for review.
- STAGE 04
Finishing
Colour grade. 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
Full deliverables package, organised by format, with naming convention, channel specifications and rights documentation. 3D source assets archived for future use. Asset library handed to client.
Output: Launch-ready files plus the 3D asset library the client owns going forward.
What's Different
How XO3D works vs how commodity studios work.
| Stage | XO3D | Commodity studio |
|---|---|---|
| Brief | Creative Director joins the brief workshop and writes the direction document | Project manager takes a brief and passes it down a production line |
| Look dev | Custom materials built from physical reference for this specific product | Library materials applied from a preset palette |
| Lighting | Per-project lighting rig designed for this product, sector and brand language | Preset studio lighting templates |
| Production | Senior team, no offshoring, no junior pass-throughs | Junior renderers, sometimes offshored, supervised remotely |
| Review | Frame.io, two formal rounds, Creative Director present | Email PDFs, multiple silent revisions, slow turnaround |
| Delivery | Full asset library handed to the client, owned outright | Final files only, no asset library, no future use rights |
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. The same team works your project from start to finish. 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."
— Thomas Howcroft, Founder & Creative Director
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Want to see the process in action?
Send us a brief, real or hypothetical, and we will walk you through how we would approach it stage by stage.