3D Product Animation, Beauty, fragrance & luxury

I make 3D product films for beauty and luxury brands: launch films, festive campaigns, e-commerce loops and social cut-downs.

The work is mostly about materials and light. Glass, liquids, metal and creams have to look like the real product, in close-up and in every format.

On most of these projects I directed the film and handled the animation, look development, lighting and compositing, with the team taking the modelling and simulations when the scale called for it.

Glass, liquid and refraction

Glass and liquid are the hardest materials to render. The refraction, the reflections and the thickness of the glass have to match the real bottle.

For Valentino Uomo I rebuilt the bottle from its CAD model and sculpted the studs by hand, then used the light passing through the glass as the motion itself. On Kérastase Gloss Absolu, an Arnold switch shader controlled how much of the liquid reads through the refraction, so the bottle keeps a clean pack-shot look in any shot.

Kérastase Elixir Ultime, 3D Flower Animation

Kérastase Gloss Absolu x US Open, 3D Product Animation

Ingredients and textures

Ingredients and textures are often part of the brief: actives, powders, petals or fibres.

The fuzz on the Gloss Absolu tennis balls is real hair, grown with Cinema 4D's Hair module and rendered with Arnold's hair shaders. For Elixir Ultime, the team built the camellia procedurally in Houdini, so we could tune its shape until it was right.

For Armani Beauty's Crema Nera, the team simulated a fine powder with rock fragments embedded in it, and I handled its shading and lighting to match a studio shot.

Science made visible

Skincare campaigns often need to show things that can't be filmed, like a cell, an active or a molecule. For Carita's Biotech Gold, I designed and animated a cell travelling from its origin down through the skin's layers, abstract but on-brand, with the team on the simulations, and lit the golden bubbles so their refractions give the shot its contrast.

For Lancôme's Absolue, I built a particle morph: a stylised golden peptide breaks into a flow of particles, then reassembles into the Lancôme molecule.

Lancôme Absolue - AI Innovation Visuals, 3D Peptides Animations

Lighting the product

Most of the work on a product shot is lighting. For Armani Beauty's Meta Eye, sharp beams of light pick out the product and throw thin reflections across its black surface, in hard contrast with the dark set.

For Lancôme's Idôle gifting box, the films lived on liquid, glass and reflections, and I tuned the reflections and highlights on the glass and the liquid.

Parfums Christian Dior Homme Dermo System, 3D Product Animations

Lancôme Idole Gifting Box, 3D Product Animation

Launches, festivals and gifting

Many of these films are tied to a date: Chinese New Year, Double Eleven, 6.18, Black Friday or Christmas. The date is fixed, and the hero film usually comes with a full set of cut-downs and key visuals.

For Lancôme's Black Friday I directed a film set in a factory and delivered over twenty 8K key visuals, each with and without the product, so the agency could photograph the real products from the exact same angles.

Parfums Christian Dior Chinese New Year 2019, 3D Product Animations

Biotherm Chinese New Year 2025, Campaign Visuals & Animations

SKII Hyper Festive, 3D skincare products

Parfums Christian Dior TMall Launch, 3D Product Animations

One scene, every format

Since everything is built in 3D, the same scenes are used for the hero film, the social cut-downs and the campaign stills.

For Kate Spade's Chérie Je T'aime, I delivered the key visuals in layered formats, so the bottle could be recomposed across extreme horizontal and vertical ratios without breaking the framing.

Kate Spade Chérie Je T’aime, CG Product Photography

Prada Mother & Father’s Days 2023, 3D Product Animation

What I deliver

Hero product films
Social cut-downs in every ratio
E-commerce and shopping-festival assets
Campaign stills from the same 3D scenes
Liquid, texture and ingredient animation
Loops for websites and retail screens

Clients

Questions

What do you need to get started?

The brief, the product's technical files or reference photos, and any storyboard or moodboard you already have. If there's no concept yet, I can take on the creative direction.

Which formats can you deliver?

Any length and ratio: a hero film, cut-downs for social (9:16, 1:1, 4:5), loops for e-commerce and screens, and stills rendered from the same scenes. One set of 3D scenes covers all of them.

Which tools do you use?

Cinema 4D for animation, Arnold for shading and lighting, Nuke for compositing, and AI where it genuinely helps, for textures, backgrounds or variations.

Do you work with agencies or directly with brands?

Both. With an agency, I work with its creative team and make the films and images from its concept and art direction. With a brand's marketing team, I can take on the creative direction myself.

Working on a product launch?

Send me the brief, the timing and the formats you need.

Get in touch →