The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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Brand Purpose Creative Works Technology

How 3D visualization is transforming entire industries and powering the metaverse

By Paul Gresty, Freelance writer

February 10, 2022 | 5 min read

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At The Drum’s recent Predictions 2022 event, Meizi Yan, territory manager of Adobe 3D and Immersive in Southeast Asia, made three key predictions for creative industry trends in 2022.

3D

The 3D online game business has exploded during the pandemic. This is also the leading technology industry.

Having worked in 3D Design throughout her career, Yan explained the current trend towards entire industries transferring to 3D visualization, and how it will benefit both business and creativity. She argued that 3D design is incredibly flexible, efficient, cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable, while acknowledging that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation across industries, sometimes at breakneck speeds.

Yan’s key predictions were:

Transformation of client structures

Clients ask for premium consultancy with different 3D design workflows. This is transforming industries including automotive transportation, high-tech, retail, ecommerce, fashion, medical, and more. The industrial design business worldwide is shifting from physical to 3D digital samples. Thanks to Adobe Sensei, machine learning removes all lighting shadows and seams, creating a realistic 3D material from a single photo. Teams can now make and show 3D designs anywhere.

Meizi also discussed virtual photography. Renting physical photoshoot studios has been tough during the pandemic; this has been one factor that has led to companies increasingly exploring how virtual photography can help teams create photo scenes with software, which provides complete control of all elements, including: lighting stages, products displayed, 3D modeling, and textures. Meizi talked about how clients simply need to drag these elements into the scene, then allow the computer to simulate the perfect shot, allowing the creation of marketing materials of the highest quality.

She added that functional silos such as sales, marketing, IT, and support are all connected by 3D design, and predicted good market ROI for businesses in the digital world. By some estimations, 3D is ten times cheaper than the cost of conventional imagery and drives critical next-generation merchandising experiences.

The gaming industry

“It would be best if you master the complexity of 3D technologies to be a good player in this field,” Meizi said. “But even more important is that you can manage with automatic workflow transformations.”

The 3D online game business has exploded during the pandemic. This is also the leading technology industry. Gamers today request bigger world maps, better engagement, a more impressive experience, and various resolutions across different gameplay services including mobile, PC, and console.

“Our designers must rely on many automatic workflows to finish these basic design tasks,” she said. “For example, creating the template suite for a huge scale of similar content, computing different variations on the cloud server and evolving a bunch of parametric modeling and texturing pipelines.

“Especially in Southeast Asia, gaming is rising just like a star: being efficient, cost effective, and scalable are key drivers of this new growth market, ” Meizi continued.” Most famous game companies and local studios have expanded wildly in this region these past years. So, automation will be crucial to drive this market to be more attractive worldwide.”

The metaverse

“How can we fill these new digital virtual worlds?” Meizi asked. “Everything we have done over the past 20 years has been based on high-end 3D creations. It’s technology only 3D experts know. Suddenly, we’ve been asked: ‘Hey, how do we do this with other creative designers, including 2D and 3D artists?’”

Meizi said the challenge for many companies today is how to generate standard 3D content for the metaverse with scalability. “New technology engagement has been a challenge,” she warned. “Our development team has been focused on lowering the technical barrier for 3D entry and flattening the learning curve with massive ready-to-use virtual content creation. AI is also a “crucial area of opportunity” with software “improving (both) the pro designers’ and users’ generated content experience.”

She cautioned: “Metaverse is not in the dictionary. Each organization has defined the concept differently. Some are focused on VR & AR; others believe in cross-multiple services like extended smartphone. Facebook changed its name to Meta for social purposes, and Tencent elevated its services to a fully engaged Web 3.0 internet experience. The key is still how to quantify the results and KPIs,” she stated.

Meizi contrasted giant platforms such as Microsoft, Roblox, and Tencent, which are “trying so hard to leverage training initiatives internally, with enterprise brands looking to increase brand visibility with new customers,” via virtual living rooms or digital virtual shopping malls.

To help organizations increase their Metaverse market share, she added, “as a senior manager you need a reliable suite of powerful 3D applications” and ready-to-use cloud-based content libraries. “No matter how many platforms will lead these virtual digital markets, your team needs to be ready to successfully navigate a highly dynamic environment,” Meizi concluded.

Watch the full session to hear more about the future of 3D visualization here.

Brand Purpose Creative Works Technology

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