3D Animation Services

What is included in 3D animation services?

Everything between a brief and a finished file. Concept and previz, modelling or CAD cleanup, look development, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, grade, and the reformats each channel needs. Sound design and original music come through my network rather than from me directly, as on BASF Design Fabrics, where the score was written by David Marquardt.

The part most briefs underestimate is the tail end. A campaign rarely needs one film. It needs the film, three cutdowns, a vertical version, a square version and a set of key visuals for print and out of home. In 3D all of that comes out of one scene, which is why the asset matters more than the edit.

Which type of 3D animation does my project need?

If your goal is	The service is	Typical output
Show a product in motion, in detail, without a shoot	3D product animation	Hero film, social cutdowns, key visual stills
Run a brand campaign that could not be filmed	CGI commercials	Campaign film, TV and online versions, OOH frames
Put a character, creature or hands on screen	Character animation	Performance shots, loops, social assets
Make the physics itself the idea, cloth, fluid, destruction	Houdini FX and simulation	FX shots, procedural variants, element passes
Fill a stage screen or blend CG with filmed plates	Mixed reality production	Live show visuals, hybrid campaign films
Carry a track visually	Music video animation	Sequences, full videos, stylised inserts

Most projects sit across two rows. A product film with a cloth simulation is a product animation with FX, not a separate discipline, and it stays in one pipeline either way.

What does 3D animation cost to produce?

I do not quote from a price list, because nothing in this field scales with duration. What moves the number is scene complexity, the number of unique shots, how much simulation is involved, how photoreal the materials have to be, the number of reformats, and how many approval levels sit between the brief and sign off. A thirty second film with one hero angle can be less work than a five second shot with a cloth simulation on a moving product.

The full breakdown of what drives the number is in what drives the cost of a CGI commercial. If you want the short version before you brief anything, 2D vs 3D animation compares the cost structures of the two routes directly.

What work proves this?

• Trainline Tap That App: hyperreal CG hands for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, a sound led music video plus digital out of home across UK stations including London Kings Cross, Waterloo, Birmingham New Street, Manchester Piccadilly and Glasgow Central.
• adidas ZK 2K Boost: three animated product films built on physics driven motion, one of which passed three million organic views on adidas' Instagram.
• Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7: product animation composited into filmed environments, the hybrid case between pure CGI and a shoot.
• BASF Design Fabrics: stylised animation for materials that are difficult to photograph, where simulation shows behaviour instead of surface.
• PUMA Be The Spark and the music video collection for artists released through Universal, Sony Music and Gorillaz.

Why hire a specialist instead of a full service studio?

	Specialist (me)	Full service studio
Who you brief	The person doing the work	An account and project layer
Feedback loop	Direct, same day	Routed through a producer
Range	3D, animation, FX, comp, grade	Full campaign including strategy and media
Scaling	Fixed network of animators, sound and direction	In house departments
Overhead	None	Structural, and it is in the rate
Best for	Product films, CGI led campaigns, FX heavy work	Multi channel campaigns needing strategy and media buying

If the deliverable is the animation itself, the specialist route removes translation layers. If you need a campaign built across channels, a studio has infrastructure I do not, and I am frequently the 3D part of exactly that setup. The longer version of that decision is in hiring a freelance 3D artist vs an animation studio.

What makes a 3D animation project go wrong?

1. Feedback arriving after the expensive step. Lighting notes during look development are cheap. The same notes after final renders are not. Nothing moves forward here until the previous stage is signed off.
2. An unclear approval chain. The number of people between the first note and the final yes changes a schedule more than the creative brief does.
3. Missing or dirty product data. CAD in STEP, OBJ or FBX is the fastest route. Without it the product is modelled from photos and dimensions, which adds an approval round before look development starts.
4. Reformats treated as an afterthought. If a vertical cut is decided late, the framing was built for the wrong aspect. Naming every format up front costs one sentence in the brief.
5. Photoreal as a default. Full photorealism is a cost driver, not a quality level. Plenty of campaigns work better stylised, as Starfish and Coffee did.

Can 3D animation replace a shoot?

For most product led films, yes, and the comparison is worth reading in full in CGI vs live action product commercials. 3D wins when the product does not physically exist yet, when the shot is impossible or unsafe to film, when you need many variants, or when the asset should survive more than one campaign.

Live action wins when the film depends on a human performance, a real place, or a documentary tone. A lot of good work is a hybrid, and that is an answer rather than a compromise. The Samsung campaign is exactly that case.

Who are you and who do you work with?

Marco Mori, 3D artist and creative director, based in Lindau at Lake Constance in Germany, working with clients worldwide. Ten years in the field, work for adidas, PUMA, Samsung, BASF, Trainline through Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, and artists released through Universal Music, Sony Music and Gorillaz. Houdini and procedural design are the backbone, which is why FX heavy and variant heavy briefs land here.

Got something to scope? Send a brief with the goal, reference, product data if there is a product, and the date it goes live, and you will get a realistic plan back rather than a pitch.