If you are a 3D artist or a product business owner you may be currently exploring options to add a product configurator to your site. When we were looking at options we stumbled across Vectary and decided to give it a try, Here is our review / guide on how to create 3D product configurators with Vectary The result is at the end!. *This article is not sponsored by Vectary
Vectary Features
When exploring options we decided to go with Vectary because of the following features
Photo-realistic results
As a photorealistic 3D visualization agency the quality of the results were important to us, Our clients will use the configurators on their product pages, which may be viewed by thousands of potential customers a day. Even a 1% increase in conversion rate can be make a huge difference in their sales, which is why creating a high quality result is important to us, it may be the final swing to ensure a customers confidence to add to cart.
Material Edits
Another features that we found useful for the creative process was the ability to edit materials, when creating realistic lighting experienced artists will understand that the materials properties are important for creating the right look. Metallic, roughness and specular values can have a great effect on how an object looks, Vectary allows you to edit these values to ensure they are correct and also apply color corrections to the material texture so you can adjust it to the lighting inside the Vectary studio.
Creative Scenes
Unlike some other options the powerful Vectary studio actually allows you to add props and other creative elements to the scenes. This means you are not limited to just a white studio scene (although an essential setup) its also great to have the option to create more creative and eye-catching visuals. At Renderly we always look to create content that grabs attention and looks stunning. Check out the example from Vectary below
Pricing
Here are the pricing plans for Vectary and what you get for each tier
How to create a Product Configurator using Blender and Vectary
1) Export 3D files from Blender
First step is to export your 3D files from blender, we found that GLB files work really well for this, as they transfer materials very well. Go to file - export inside blender and chose glTF 2.0.
2) Important files to Vectary
Open a new Vectary project and select the purple box with 3 white lines in the top left - import and import the GLB file that you just saved.
3) Clean up materials
You may need to clean / fix some of the materials on your object, if you made changes via nodes in blender or if they are imported in with some incorrect parameters. You can edit these in the material properties section in Vectary, including fixing the UV's, hue and saturation of the texture and the metallic and roughness values.
4) Set up the Lighting / Effects
Next its time to set up the lighting, you can either set up an HDRI light via the environment tab, to get to this, click the background of your Vectary scene and look at the top right for the environment tab. You can also set up manual lighting by adding lights into the scene, Vectary comes with 4 types of light that are standard in the 3D industry including, rectangle, directional, spot and point lights. We also suggest at this point to mess around with the Effects tab (found underneath the environment section). Here you can add visual effects such as bloom, color correction and ambient occlusion to increase the quality of your scene.
5) Add camera / props
Now it is time to add the camera, which you can do inside Vectary, To pilot the camera select the eye icon next to the camera in the left side tab. There are a number of camera settings to play with on the right hand side, such as depth of field, custom aspect ratio's and importantly setting's to limit how far the viewer can rotate zoom and pan the camera. Make sure that you have the correct settings in here for your scene as you don't want your viewer accidentally panning away from the product and not being able to get back. You can test this by hitting preview in the top right of the studio.
If you are also adding props to your scene, you can do this by repeating steps 1-3 for your props and placing them in the correct locations in your scene.
6) Material / Object Switchers
Here is the fun part! Now its time to add the controls for your configurator, Vectary has a really nice interface for this. You can add material switchers and object switchers so viewers can change the material options on the product and hide and remove optional extras. You can also assign 'hotspots' which are clickable icons on certain points of the item, these can be used to either reveal information about the product, or open a switcher that allows you to customize that part of the object. Vectary have a great guide on this section that goes into greater detail. See below.
7) Export
Now it is time to export your configurator, you can do so by clicking the share button in the top right of the studio. You can generate a custom link so people can access the configurator or you can generate HTML code that can then be embedded directly onto your website. By clicking synchronise you don't have to generate a new link or code, just refresh the web page!
Results:
If you would like to learn more about 3D product configurators take a look at our page on them here!
We create 3D Visualizations for product busineses, including product configurators if you would like to have a chat with use about taking your product marketing material to the next level you can, drop us an email!