3D rendering for beverage and packaged goods
Beverage and CPG rendering builds cans, bottles, cartons and pouches as digital products, then shoots them: chilled packshots, condensation, pour and splash simulation, and full lifestyle scenes. Every flavour, size and seasonal variant comes off the same model, so a twelve-SKU range costs a fraction of twelve photo shoots.
What breaks in this category
Beverage is unforgiving in three specific places, and they are the places cheap renders fail. Aluminium is not a grey material — it is anisotropic, so the highlight smears along the direction the metal was drawn, and getting that wrong makes a can read as plastic. Label artwork has to wrap a compound curve without stretching the type, which is a UV problem, not a texture problem. And condensation is not a droplet texture: real beads refract what is behind them, sag under their own weight, and vary in size by how long the can has been out of the fridge.
What we deliver for drinks brands
Built once, then shot as many ways as the range needs.
- Chilled and dry studio packshots on white, for retailer and marketplace listings
- Full flavour ranges and seasonal variants from one model and swapped artwork
- Condensation, ice, pour and splash simulation
- Lifestyle and occasion scenes — bar, beach, fridge, table
- 360° turntables for product detail pages
- Can, bottle, carton, pouch, multipack and shelf-set builds
- Print-resolution stills for packaging, POS and out-of-home
Why CPG is the strongest case for CGI anywhere
No category churns SKUs like packaged goods. A drinks brand ships a new flavour, a limited edition, a festive pack and a format extension in the same year, and each one is another shoot with another sample that has to physically exist first. Rendering inverts that: the model is built once, the artwork is a swap, and the twelfth flavour is a morning's work rather than a production. It also means launch imagery can be finished while the can is still in print approval.
Shelf sets and multipacks
The shot that sells a listing to a buyer is rarely a single unit — it is the range together, or the product on shelf next to what it is competing with. Those are expensive photographs and cheap renders, because once one can exists every other can in frame is a duplicate with different artwork.
Questions
Can you render a can or bottle from packaging artwork alone?
Yes. A dieline or print-ready label artwork plus the container dimensions is enough — the vessel is a known shape and gets built to spec, then your artwork is wrapped onto it properly rather than pasted flat.
How do you handle a full flavour range?
One container is modelled and lit, and each flavour is an artwork swap against the same setup. That is why ranges are priced very differently from single products: the second SKU costs a small fraction of the first.
Can you match our existing pack photography?
Yes. Send the hero shots and the lighting, lens and grade get matched, so new CGI drops into the same listing grid as the photography already there without looking like a different product.
Do you do condensation and pour shots?
Yes — both are simulated rather than textured. Beads refract what is behind them and sag realistically; pours and splashes are run as fluid simulation, which is what lets the shape of the liquid be art-directed instead of hoped for.
Is CGI allowed for marketplace listings?
Yes, provided the image is an accurate representation of the product as sold. Marketplaces care about accuracy, not about which tool produced the pixels. The full rules are in our guide to ecommerce product image requirements.