Product Designer to CG Artist

Somebody asked today how I got so involved into product rendering over the last few months. I thought it might serve as a good lesson for others (and myself) in the future, so I decided to write a little article about it.

Initially I was hired as a product designer and wasn’t really involved in any visualization other than drafting, 3D modelling and technical documentation. I liked what I was doing and I was learning from my fellow designers but day-to-day business was often very technical in nature and I felt that some of my colleagues were just better at that stuff than I was.

Then, during one of our weekly meetings, the CEO dropped a question on us, out of the blue: “Do any of you guys know how to do some rendering?” I had done some rendering in University with software such as Keyshot and 3DS Max but those results were good enough for University, not for professional marketing collateral. Although I wasn’t completely sure about myself, I said “Yeah, I think I know a thing or two about rendering.” He continued and explained to us why he wants to look at rendering for new products we were launching in the future and how it would increase the speed to try out new products in a more tangible way.

After that meeting I gave it a try and showed it to him. He seemed impressed with some basic renderings which was great to hear as I wasn’t sure he’d like it. After that initial render, I started to work more and more on rendering and a year later, about half of my workload consists of creating all sort of marketing collateral for new products.

During the last year I have discovered an entire new aspect of product design, a great software package ( I never had any idea how advanced Keyshot really is), a bunch of great communities (Keyshot Forum, Behance,...), youtube tutorial channels (Will Gibbons, Exben Oxholm, Keyshot YT-Channel, Blender Guru, Sam Does Design to name a few awesome ones) and websites (3D Warehouse, 3D Sky, Turbosquid, HDRI Haven,...) that helped me crank up my rendering skills, and most of all a lot of passion for this kind of work. I am still learning but I’m now doing full scene renderings that often look close to photorealism. I feel that I’m really in control of the software and I know where to go for information when I need it. No matter what is asked from me at this point, I know I can get a good rendering done for it.

The lesson that I learned from this is mainly that, when an opportunity that you’re interested in presents itself, take it even if you aren’t 100% confident of your abilities. It will greatly expand your horizon, it will make your work all the more interesting and it will keep your drive going. Often the best way to learn something, is to just start doing it and figure it out along the way.

Have you ever been in a situation where you took initiative without feeling very confident about your work? Where did it get you?