WHY IS CGI A GOOD BET FOR BIG COMPANIES?
COMPANIES ARE MAKING THE SWITCH
Many of the top manufacturing companies are switching to CGI for their product photography needs, and it's only increasing in popularity. In this video, Dustin Valkema discusses this topic and why this is happening. If you're a commercial product photographer, you know how much work goes into a large-scale photoshoot and product visualization.
It is costly for large companies to create images ranging from simple white backgrounds to full-scale lifestyle sets. So, why are the top companies switching to CGI for their product photography? We'll discuss a few points below.
"The world of 3D gives companies endless possibilities when it comes to product visualization. There is no concept out of bounds for creative campaigns that make high-quality eye-catching imagery for their products."
— DUSTIN VALKEMA
COST AND TIME
There is no doubt that creating stunning visuals for large companies is possible with traditional product photography. However, doing so not only requires a lot of working hands to get the job done but requires quite a bit of time, planning, and cost to make it happen. Let's take a furniture manufacturer; for example, we'll use Crate & Barrel.
Being a company with thousands of products that need to be photographed, one can imagine a significant production cost. The cost of product logistics alone is relatively high, let alone the set designers, assistants, directors, art directors, and the entire team for the production. Many times shipping products can take weeks or longer, which can be hard for product launch imagery.
CGI helps cut much of time and budget costs down while providing photoreal results and meeting strenuous deadlines. With CGI, clients can choose between many pre-built environments for their products and quickly direct the desired look remotely. Within a short amount of time, they're ready for 3D rendering.
CUSTOMIZATION
CGI offers a solution for large companies needing customization options like online configurators across entire catalogs. This cuts down on the number of individualized required images and gives the customer a great experience when shopping online. Many companies are using AR apps to allow potential buyers to visualize products inside their homes. Talk about a great way to window shop for various products when furnishing a new home.
Base Model Render
Office Option 1
CGI RESOURCES
There are so many CGI (computer-generated images) resources available that make product design and visualization a breeze and photorealistic results much easier to achieve. See our blog article here for the top resources and tutorials. With this great list of assets to use, companies and artists can quickly create incredible visuals of their products.
NO CONCEPTUAL LIMITS
The world of 3D gives companies endless possibilities when it comes to product visualization. There is no concept out of bounds for creative campaigns that make high-quality eye-catching imagery for their products. With today's demand for stunning visuals, animation and motion graphics are key! Whether for Instagram stories or other social content.
CGI allows companies to visualize their products in new ways while creating compelling campaigns in the process. Check out Already Been Chewed for some incredible inspiration! This studio takes product visualization and animation to the next level in astonishing detail. In short, CGI can do things that simply cannot be done in traditional photography.
REUSABLE ASSETS
Once a product is 3D modeled, it lives forever and can be reused or repurposed at any time. This means that large companies no longer have to ship products to create updated images. Furniture brands benefit from this greatly. There are often multiple iterations of a product in numerous materials and settings like white studio backgrounds and lifestyle images.
This also comes in handy when a company decides to rebrand and needs to update product photography to new company standards. This process is cut down tremendously with the ease of creation in CGI.
CONTROL
There is so much flexibility with CGI and that it gives companies the ultimate control over their final product. Everything from photorealism, color accuracy, environment, and creative design and be art directed on the fly. There are many times that direction changes mid-production for whatever reason. CGI offers the best solution in taking control of such adjustments.
CONCLUSION
Product manufacturing companies need stunning marketing imagery for their products and flexibility in time and cost. Computer-generated imagery offers a high-quality solution to this "problem." Many top companies are finding that CGI is cost-effective, provides quick turnarounds, lower overall budgets, and a limitless creative environment that meets a media-driven society's needs.