Product visuals marketing is evolving. As sales channels evolve from physical marketplaces to the digital sphere, the production process for product visuals must also make the leap. Marketers need to be more agile to create visuals that move the sales needle. Digitization is the only way to address the growing number of product catalogs and a greater need to personalize visual content through creativity.
CGI/3D Product Modeling to the Rescue
By embracing next-gen technologies like computer-generated ry (CGI) and 3D visualization, businesses can start to update, refresh and adapt product photos for infinitely personalized and dynamic customer experiences. They can create dynamic, photorealistic visuals in a few clicks — without even needing a camera.
The benefits are tremendous. CGI reduces costs for marketers by eliminating the need for logistical and production costs, like hiring crews for photography, moving and even staging. It also saves organizations time by eliminating the logistical and transportation hassles, while lowering the carbon footprint associated with the logistics. CGI allows marketers to create and customize high-quality, infinitely adaptable visual content for different audiences and makes A/B testing easier to trigger more purchases.
Diverse Ways to Engage Your Audience
For marketers who are only starting to explore the world of CGI product visuals or looking to enhance the effectiveness of their digital content via creative alternatives, CGI can produce a wide selection of digital asset:
- 3D model production: high-fidelity of product shape, measurements, and material
- Silo renders: immerse products into a variety of contextual backgrounds
- 360° product spin: multiple-angle view of product details
- Background scene templates: creative sceneries for better customer experience
The Need to Scale
3D modeling is the biggest bottleneck for CGI: not standardized, not transparent, expensive and very hard to scale. Today, 3D modeling is undertaken by freelancers who are artists with their own individual stack, processes and post-effect. Basically, it’s an art. This means it is difficult to scale, not standardized and expensive.
The future of 3D lies in the ability to process large sets of assets with predictable timing, quality, and pricing. Organizations are just now trying to solve the scaling problem and to speed up the production process and understand the potential obstacles.
Unifying inputs – Unifying the multitude of input formats can speed up production. 3D modeling requires a minimum number of inputs to achieve the desired results. Inputs can be of a great variety of formats from CAD to photo files. Different inputs can be translated into a common protocol for 3D modelers to work on, speeding up the process
Standardization of outputs – Human-created 3D models are not free from artistic biases. However, visual outputs should have a standard look and feel across the process. Outputs should be future-proof, so they can be applied to new digital experiences such as the Metaverse.
AI assistance to simplify process – Artificial Intelligence tools and automated sub-processes in the modeling journey (think human-assistance tools in the aircraft industry) can greatly reduce production time.
Brands’ and retailers’ appetites for CGI/ 3D product visuals is growing exponentially. With this technology, visuals can be produced 10 times faster than with traditional methods.
Author
Get our newsletter and digital focus reports
Stay current on learning and development trends, best practices, research, new products and technologies, case studies and much more.
