Everything You Should Know About 3D Product Rendering

Imagine starting a new company but lacking investments due to poor communication with investors and inability to convey your vision. This situation must be frustrating, but luckily, powerful digital design techniques have transformed the way businesses visualize and market their products. One such technique is 3D product rendering, which not only helps in concept visualization but significantly cuts repetitive prototyping costs and efforts.  

No matter if you need fashion, automotive, furniture, or consumer electronics product visualization, this technique can enhance customer engagement and decision-making. Thus, this article uncovers detailed insights about product rendering, from software involved to processes and applications. Read thoroughly to learn its basics and start creating a photorealistic product image with minimal skills.

Part 1. What is 3D Product Rendering?

It's a process of creating 3D realistic images of 2D product models by utilizing specialized software. Here, advanced computer graphics are used to generate detailed and lifelike product representations before they even exist.

Many brands are utilizing this technique to visualize their upcoming products' colors, features, and overall design. This way, they can effectively communicate their concept with related teams so the final output meets expectations.

Part 2. Software for 3D Product Rendering

3D rendering of products presents photorealistic details with clear textures and dimensions, but it is only possible with the right rendering software. Thus, read the following description and know which software is right for your project requirements:

1. Maya

Autodesk Maya is a 3D animation and visual effects software that lets users create complex and realistic characters or products. In terms of rendering, it integrates Arnold renderer and leverages its USD-based workflow in production scenarios. Besides, it allows users to create a wide range of shaders, simulate exposure and focus distance with cameras.

2. Arnold

This global illumination rendering software is known as an advanced Monte Carlo ray tracing render that is designed for executing predictable images. It lets users switch between GPU and CPU rendering seamlessly while providing high-performance ray-traced subsurface scattering. Additionally, it provides an advanced toon shader and 3D motion blur that interacts with lighting, volumes, and shadows.

3. Blender

For ultra-realistic product design rendering, it facilitates an unbiased path tracer engine, Cycles. Other than GPU and CPU rendering, it supports VR rendering support, viewpoint preview, PBR shaders, and HDR lighting. Moreover, Blender caters to shading, geometry, lighting, motion blur, camera & effects, and interactivity aspects.

4. Cinema 4D

It is a 3D animation, modeling, and rendering software solution that is now combined with RedShift, a powerful GPU-accelerated renderer. This integration uses cutting-edge algorithms to make the maximum use of computer hardware resources. Furthermore, this renderer is built on a pluggable node system to let users customize the system with shaders, filters, and cameras.

Part 3. What is the 3D Product Rendering Process?

Creating a photorealistic render product involves several phases, and proper attention to each stage significantly contributes to the final output. Hence, discussed below are the steps you must carefully consider for a successfully anticipated rendered image.

1. Modeling

This stage begins with creating a 3D model of a product through software like 3DS Max, Blender, or Maya. However, before that, you must have gathered all the information and basic sketches your team or managers approved.

For instance, you should know where to place a logo on sneakers, its exact dimensions, markings, and cushioning. Following that, an artist can use polygonal modeling or NURBS techniques to craft a 3D model that seems realistic but lacks texture.

2. Texturing

Once your 3D model is approved, you can enter the texturing phase that involves adding materials and surface properties to the product. It provides visual characteristics to your 3D model by adding colors, patterns, and other important material details. To achieve this, artists either paint the surface or apply texture maps, which are digital images available online for free or paid.

3. Lighting

It's the third phase in the 3D rendering product process that adds depth to the model and highlights its key features. However, remember that the light source has several properties, like direction, color, fall-off, and intensity, which can negatively impact the entire scene if not adjusted properly. Thus, based on your product's nature, you should add spotlights, point lights, or ambient lighting at this stage.

4. Camera Setup

Another significant step is the camera setup, which is important to understand because it affects the way a model looks. For this purpose, focus on the aspect ratio, exposure, focal length, field of view, and other fundamental rules of photography. Upon that, artists can create more meaningful, natural, and art-directed compositions for realistic rendered images.

5. Rendering

To make the 3D model look realistic in 2D images, rendering is the final stage, which requires product rendering software and rendering engines. In this regard, it utilizes complex calculations of light interactions, geometry, and material properties for computer-generated images. Notably, this computationally intensive process may take hours and even days, based on the complexity of your project.

6. Post-production

If the quality of the final rendered output doesn't align with your expectations, you can refine it in the post-production phase. Here, artists can use image editing software to make color corrections, contrast adjustments, and apply subtle effects.

Pro Tips: Improve the 3D Product Rendering Efficiency

As discussed, rendering 3D models of products can take significant time, which can leave you frustrated and helpless when your project has complex scenes. However, the situation can turn even worse when you have to render a large number of 3D products for images or CG videos. Luckily, it can be overcome with the help of 3D product rendering services, Fox Renderfarm.

This cloud rendering service can render your complex projects immediately through both CPU and CPU rendering based on your project's requirements. Without utilizing your local machines' limited performance, it renders volumes of 3D products quickly via Raysync's high-speed transmission speed.

Exclusive Features

• High-end Security: While rendering a sensitive project, remember that Fox Renderfarm is ISO27001 certified and a TPN accredited vendor. Plus, it provides a non-disclosure agreement that means your data will be kept secure, private, and confidential throughout the entire process.
• Wide Software Support: Fox Renderfarm supports all popular 3D software, plugins, and renderers, such as Maya Arnold, Blender, Cinema 4D, RedShift, and Corona.
• Multi-OS Compatibility: If you have a misconception that rendering services will not work on your system, know that this product rendering service is compatible with all systems. Thus, no matter if you have Windows, Mac, or Linux systems, it will work with 99.9% uptime.
• Dedicated Service Team: To streamline your workflow, it has an award-winning customer service team that is available 24/7 to handle your queries via email, Skype, and WhatsApp.
• Automatic Detection: For efficient performance, it automatically detects the IT environment of your project and system to align it with cloud infrastructure. Besides that, it has a high-performance SSD storage solution to deduct the I/O bottlenecks.

Part 4. What Are 3D Product Renders Used For?

Before taking 3D product visualization services subscriptions, you must explore applications of 3D product rendering through the given points and broaden your perspective:

• Prototyping: Primarily, 3D models are rendered to visualize a product before manufacturing, which helps in material selection, design modifications, and concept visualization.
• Advertising & E-commerce: Before the actual launch, product rendering services let companies market their product in variations to know the demand and best angle for printing materials.
• AR & VR experiences: Many global brands use 3D models for interactive AR/VR experiences so that customers can visualize products in real time before purchasing.

Part 5. 3D Product Rendering vs. Photography: Which One is Better?

Some individuals confuse photography and 3D product rendering regarding their superiority, which creates a surge for a clear picturization of comparison, just like drawing ahead.

The table shows that if you need flexibility, consistency, and variations, especially for prototyping, go for 3D product rendering since photography is an outdated approach in this context. 

Conclusion

In summary, product visualization is an essential component of the consumer goods manufacturing realm, but 3D rendering of products has replaced old techniques for good. Therefore, we have explored its basics, operational steps, software involved, and applications. Besides, it suggested that you use Fox Renderfarm cloud 3D product rendering services to speed up the volumes of product rendering.