XO3D Studio · Thinking
Material Obsession.
If the material doesn't behave the way the real object would, the viewer knows, even if they can't say why. That's the thing we're always solving.
There is a particular look that commodity product CGI has. You've seen it in thousands of product listings, in most corporate product videos, in the overwhelming majority of CGI produced for e-commerce. The surface is metallic but not quite right. The specular highlight is in roughly the correct position but moves wrongly as the camera passes. The plastic reads as plastic but not as that specific grade of polycarbonate with that specific surface treatment. Everything is approximately correct and nothing is actually right.
The viewer doesn't consciously identify any of this. They feel it. The product seems slightly less real than it should. The material seems slightly less trustworthy. The overall effect is a reduction in the viewer's willingness to believe the product's quality promise, which is the exact opposite of what the CGI was commissioned to produce.
We have spent years trying to understand why this happens, and how to keep it out of our work.
Library materials
Why a preset may not match your specific finish.
Most CGI software comes with material libraries: "brushed aluminium", "matte plastic", "gloss paint". A preset describes a broad category. It can be a useful starting point when it resembles the reference, but a distinctive product finish may need a material built from scratch.
A generic brushed aluminium preset, for example, may miss the direction and character of a particular product's surface. The relevant question is whether its highlights, colour and texture hold up against the reference for that project.
A mismatch can become visible when a light or camera moves across the surface. That is why material work includes checking renders from the angles that matter to the final film or stills, then adjusting the finish where the reference and render disagree.
What reconstruction actually involves
The process behind a material that reads as real.
We study the available reference for the product: a physical object, specifications, client photographs or comparable images. We look at how light behaves on the surface at different angles. Where does the reflection become tight and specular? Where does it spread into a broader, diffuse glow? Is there anisotropy in the brushing? What is the base colour beneath the reflections?
On the Nanuskate ramp animation, Jack Robertson had client-supplied images and online photographs of comparable plastic composites, but no physical sample. No library finish was close enough, so he built the composite material from scratch. The first pass read too uniformly; slight colour shifts helped each panel read as a separate surface. The references also showed fine speckling and small pellet-like detail.
A preset cannot supply those project-specific observations. Roughness, colour variation and fine surface detail have to be judged against the reference available, then checked in the render. Jack also uses masks to separate details, colours and finishes within materials instead of packing them into one diffuse map.
Building and checking a material against references can take more work than applying a preset. On Nanuskate, the meaningful change was small: a slight colour shift on each panel corrected a first pass that looked too uniform.
The most difficult materials
Where the problem is hardest to solve.
Liquid
Beer, spirits, water, oil
Liquid requires volumetric simulation, the light doesn't just reflect off the surface, it enters the liquid, scatters within it, and exits at a different point. The colour of a spirit in a glass depends on liquid depth, the specific absorption properties of the liquid, and the refraction index of the glass container. Every variable interacts. There is no shortcut.
Translucent plastics
Diffusers, covers, casings
Semi-transparent polymers, the frosted diffuser on a smart home device, the translucent casing of a medical device, the smoked lens on a consumer electronic, require subsurface scattering alongside correct transparency and refraction. The interaction between internal light scatter and surface reflection is where most CGI fails with these materials.
Natural materials
Wood, cane, leather, stone
Organic materials resist perfect reconstruction because they are never perfectly consistent. Wood grain has pattern but not repetition. Leather has texture but not uniformity. The challenge is capturing the character of the material, the quality that makes it read as natural, without producing either a sterile digital pattern or an overcrowded surface.
Coated metals
Anodised, PVD, powder coat
Metal finishing processes, anodising, physical vapour deposition, powder coating, dramatically change the optical properties of the base metal. The same aluminium substrate reads completely differently in natural anodise versus black anodise versus colour-anodised versions. Each requires separate material reconstruction; a palette swap does not produce correct results.
Why it matters commercially
Material accuracy is a brand-trust mechanism.
The viewer's response to material quality in product imagery is visceral and pre-conscious. They do not decide whether the material looks right, they feel it before they can think. That feeling becomes a judgement about the product's quality, authenticity, and value. Material accuracy is not a technical nicety. It is the mechanism by which product CGI either builds or erodes brand trust.
We judge a library material against the project reference before using it in final work. If it is close, we can refine it. If it misses a distinctive finish, we build the material from scratch and review the result in the intended lighting and camera views.
Questions
Common questions about material reconstruction.
How long does material reconstruction take on a typical project?
Do you ever use library materials as a starting point?
Your next project
Put the idea into the brief.
Material Obsession starts with choices about the actual product. Use the work below to compare the treatment with your references, then identify the decisions your project needs to resolve.
A route to consider
CGI stills and campaign visuals
Directed product stills with an agreed shot list, material references, environments and delivery formats.
Bring these three things.
- What finish references define the product?
- Which close views matter?
- Who approves the material treatment?
Start with an outline. We review the product, intended outputs and timing before agreeing the production scope.