3D product animation services
A film that shows what a photograph cannot. How the product opens, folds, filters, docks or gets used, animated from the 3D model and delivered in the cuts a product page, an ad and a trade show screen each need.
What a 3D product animation can show
A still image says what a product looks like. A film says what it does, which is the harder half of the sale.
How it works
The mechanism, the airflow, the path the liquid takes. The explanation a spec sheet needs three paragraphs for.
What is inside
Cutaways and exploded views in motion, with the housing opening on camera. No photograph of a closed product can do this.
The product turning
A clean loop for the product page, the same one that also exports as a 360 spin the customer can drag.
The product in use
Hands, floors, kitchens, dust on a carpet. Scenes that would need a location, a crew and a working unit to film.
Callouts and labels
Features named on screen as they appear, which is what turns a nice film into a sales tool for a distributor.
Cut downs for every channel
The full film, a 15 second ad, a vertical version and a silent loop for a trade show, all out of the same scene.
Why product films are animated instead of filmed
- Needs a working unit, so it waits for tooling
- A studio day and a crew for every scene
- The inside of the product stays invisible
- A design change means shooting the whole thing again
- Starts from CAD, months before the first unit
- New scenes cost render time, not another shoot day
- The housing opens on camera because it is modelled
- A change is a re-render, and the old cut stays intact
The model is the reason this works. Once a product exists in 3D, the film, the stills, the 360 spin and the AR view all come out of the same file, and each one costs a fraction of what it would as a separate production.
A few of the 3D product animations we have made
Most of the animation we produce sits under NDA, so this is the part we are free to show, and it is a small part.
Debris on a carpet, picked up on cameraThe shot that sells a vacuum and the one nobody can film convincingly: dust, crumbs and carpet fibres behaving the way they do, with the brushroll doing the work. Part of a three minute film built for a launch.
Inside the airflowThe camera follows the debris through the tube and into the water. Explaining this in text takes a paragraph nobody reads.
Commercial refrigeration with calloutsA CO2 booster rack with hundreds of parts, labelled on screen as the camera moves. Equipment sales run on films like this.
A loop for a fashion product pageTwo seconds, on white, with the colourway changing on the same garment. Short loops like this are the cheapest film a shop can run.
How to install it, animatedA two minute instruction film for a food waste disposer, from the sink flange to the wiring. Support calls drop when the manual moves on screen.
A media console, room and allThe camera moves through the room the way a film crew would, and the furniture is the only thing in shot that had to be manufactured later.
A coffee table with propsGlass, veneer and steel, staged with a drink and a pair of shoes. Props are what turn a product film into an advertisement.
A shelving system, demonstratedModules, finishes and the way the system fills a wall. The film sells the configuration, not just the object.
An office collectionA whole range in one scene, which is how a catalogue launch gets a film instead of a hundred separate photographs.
A gym machine, forty secondsFrame, cables and pads, animated through every exercise the machine is sold on, so a dealer can show the range without shipping one.
What separates a product film that works
Most product animations fail in the same few places, and none of them are about render quality.
How a 3D product animation project runs
Brief and script
What the film has to prove, how long it can be and where it will run. A reference film you like tells us more than a page of notes.
Model and storyboard
Your 3D file or a model built from CAD, plus a shot by shot board so the film is agreed before anything moves.
Animatic
Grey animation with the real timing. This is where pacing gets fixed, while a change still costs an afternoon.
Look and render
Materials and lighting approved on one frame, then the full film renders and comes back graded.
Cuts and delivery
The master, the short versions, vertical and square crops, with and without sound, in the formats each channel wants.
3D product animation price and timing
Animation is priced per second of finished film, so the length of the script is the number you control.
Installation and how to films
Assembly, setup, maintenance and repair. Straight camera work with callouts, the kind that replaces a paper manual.
Standard product animation
Launch films, product page loops, scenes with props and lighting. Covers the animation, the render and the grade.
Effects heavy shots
Water, smoke, powder, particles, destruction. Simulation time does not scale with the length of the shot, so these are priced from the script.
A fifteen second product page loop lands around 900 USD, a thirty second launch film around 1,800. If the 3D model does not exist yet, the modelling is quoted on top. Two rounds of revisions are included, and delivery is two to four weeks for a launch film.
See the full price list3D product animation FAQ
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