Not even long ago, showcasing a product meant booking a studio, hiring a photographer, staging props, and hoping there would be no changes to the product midway through the rollout. But now, in a time of tighter timelines and higher expectations, brands and clients want their products rendered yesterday, in a dozen formats, and updated without redoing an entire shoot.
The economics of visual appeal
Since physical limitations and post-production budgets couldn’t keep up with this change of pace, camera lenses gradually got replaced by a full CGI pipeline with light simulations, shaders, and renderings. 3D product rendering became not just viable but vital. Case in point: recent research on over 100 studios shows that 3D is, on average, six times more cost-effective than photography. Couple that fact with new data showing that the number of images the average person wants to see before purchasing something online has increased from 3 to 8 images per product, and you get the picture of why previous production methods are becoming unsustainable. And thus, just like architectural visualization carved out its space in design communication, product visualization—or prodviz for short—has quickly evolved from a niche solution to a standard across industries.
At ZOA Studio, this shift is embodied in Botond Sass, the studio’s Lead CG artist and head of the studio’s product visualization branch. As he recalls, his entry into the field was pretty seamless: “When I started managing projects, I almost immediately found myself pulled into product viz.” His dual position as project manager and creative lead gives him a unique view on the process, allowing him to both strategize and execute with precision.
For products still in development
As we’ve stated, for decades, traditional photography was the go-to. But with the growing demand for volume, efficiency, and customization, the cracks quickly began to show. If a minor detail changes or the product hasn’t even launched yet and is still going through frequent iterations, a photoshoot can become a bottleneck. “If something needs to be changed, you’d have to rebook the studio, the photographer, the crew. With CGI, we just tweak the file; it’s as simple as that.” Botond explains. That flexibility makes rendering an especially powerful tool for products still in development. Brands can launch campaigns before their physical prototypes even exist. “We used to think all the photos in IKEA catalogs were real. Turns out, they weren’t,” he remarks jokingly.
However, photography is still considered the bedrock of product visualization. A great example that Botond gives is that for many clients, the first test when hiring a new team is to have them replicate a studio-lit photo entirely in 3D. “That’s their way of seeing how well someone understands realism,” he says. “Getting it just right—the fabric texture, the light falloff, the camera depth—isn’t easy. But it’s what sets great work apart from service level.” This mentality clearly shows the focal points of product visualization that set its goals and boundaries. We’re essentially seeing the practices of the past updated, streamlined, and made ready for the future.
The anatomy of a product render
At its core, product visualization is about control. It’s about crafting every surface, highlight, and reflection until the image becomes indistinguishable from a photo—often even cleaner and more compelling than reality itself. Coming from the field of architectural visualization, Botond notes that while the tools might be similar to those used in archviz, the mindset is completely different. “When you’re rendering something from just half a meter away, every detail counts, every highlight matters,” he says. It’s about mimicking human perception—how our eyes understand materiality, depth, and dimension. That’s also why product rendering, in many ways, offers few visual tricks to fall back on. Botond sees this as a positive, saying that “these limitations push us to be more creative—especially with composition and post-production.”
And then there’s animation—a growing field within product visualization, especially as brands compete in fast-paced environments like social media, e-commerce, and digital advertising. “In some ways, product animation can be even more spectacular than what we are used to in architectural visualization,” says Botond. Without physical constraints, the camera can flow through micro-details, reveal hidden features, or emphasize interaction. “You can turn a simple product into a cinematic experience—zooming in, breaking it apart, putting it back again,” he explains. Sometimes, it’s educational. Other times, like with beauty products, it’s pure attention-grabbing marketing,” Botond says. “The goal isn’t necessarily emotion but clarity, seduction, and/or functionality.”
On the topic of whether everyone’s favorite new plaything, AI, can be leveraged in prodviz, Botond is succinct, stating that while generative algorithms have found a niche in architectural workflows, a clear line has to be drawn when it comes to product rendering. “To put it simply, AI adds atmospheric noise or detail that doesn’t exist. In other fields, that can be of great use. But for products, it’s pretty much a dealbreaker.” After all, our job as product visualization experts is to remove ambiguity, not introduce more.
Better brand control
Product visualization is not just about creating pretty images on a dime or cutting corners. It’s about faster workflows, better brand control, and scalable creative output. It differentiates products in a market flooded with content and helps brands sell more effectively. Thanks to our twenty years of collaboration with world-class designers like Shigeru Ban, Stefano Boeri, Zaha Hadid, Snøhetta, and UNS, this service has become a vital part of our offering in recent years. “Once you nail the workflow, it goes on a fast track,” Botond says. “The heavy lifting happens up front, in experimentation and refinement. After that, it’s streamlined creativity at full speed.”
With an emphasis on realism, flexibility, and technical precision, product visualization offers clients exactly what today’s world demands: visuals that don’t just represent a product but transform design into desire.
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