3D product illustration

Top-quality visuals can enhance your marketing and branding across a range of channels. Take your product's look to the next level with illustrations, technical graphics, and 3D product renderings, either as a library of image assets or as part of a larger animated video production project. Illustration projects start with visual design and look development, and finish with 3D rendering, retouching and integration into other documents.

Virtual photo shoot

For product renderings, we create a three-dimensional photo studio with CG lighting and cameras. Your product is added to this virtual studio, represented by an accurate and detailed 3D model. From there we can take snapshots of the subject from any angle or viewing distance, adjusting lighting, shadows, and reflective highlights. We control all aspects of the visual style: Each component can have a flawless mirror-finish surface, or hints of imperfections or wear and tear for more realistic renderings. Unlike a real photo studio, the virtual one does not have to be set up or broken down and is always ready for retakes or additional shots.

Product visualization file formats

Project requirements vary, but your illustrations can be rendered at any resolution and delivered in a wide variety of formats. Print projects require full-size uncompressed images, while web projects benefit from optimized images with the smallest file sizes. Consider these formats for your project:

• Web-optimized progressive JPEG images for fast downloads and the best visual quality
• High-resolution 300dpi print-ready images in TIFF format
• PNG images for PowerPoint presentations, including alpha channel transparency
• Vector file formats such as SVG for scalable, resolution-independent images

Illustrations can be the foundation for print ads, brochures, trade show posters, or PDF sell sheets. If you plan to use these for sales presentations, we can export PNG images with an alpha (transparency) channel, as these will make the background surrounding the product transparent. This helps to integrate the asset into your existing branding, including seeing through to the background of your PowerPoint presentation.

Build a product marketing image library

A public-facing library of high-quality, high-resolution approved images can facilitate press and media queries, and sharing product illustrations and renderings on sites like Flickr and Picasa creates additional social marketing and branding opportunities. By commissioning a set of product renderings prior to launch, you ensure that your product will look its best in every press release, blog post, and social media mention.

Illustration for technical documentation

3D product models can also be rendered as hidden line drawings for inclusion in technical documentation. These line drawings can be saved as vector images for use in product manuals, assembly procedures, and lightweight PDF documents. This illustration style is also ideal for patent documentation, including provisional patent applications and invention drawings.

Wide range of rendering styles

Photorealistic images are only one style of illustration. There are a wide range of rendering styles available. Some non-photorealistic rendering styles to consider would be clay rendering, which makes your product look like it was sculpted out of clay or stone, flat shading for a cel animation look, or processing images to give them a painterly or hand-drawn appearance. All images can be delivered as PNG images to include a transparent background, allowing for best display results in sell sheets and PowerPoint presentations.

Compositing and image editing

Just as a photographer's work is not finished when the photo is taken, our rendered product images are rarely the final step. Image editing, retouching, and compositing all come into play. Image edits can be as simple as color corrections or as complex as inserting computer-generated product images into live action photographs. We have even created entire poster designs to support image renderings.

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