Outsource 3D Studio VS In-house Team

There are 2 ways of getting product 3D rendering services: hiring 3D artists full-time or outsourcing to a CGI studio. Which option is best? Let’s see the pros and cons of each choice. 

1. Budget

Regardless of the projects’ frequency, an in-house team naturally requires salaries, paid sick leaves and vacations, and up-to-date workstations. Not to mention that CGI professionals don’t work for peanuts.

Meanwhile, outsource 3D artists are only paid for the time spent on the project. The rest of the spendings, including equipment, software, workstations, are taken care of by their employer — the product rendering studio.

2. Time

An in-house CGI team usually includes 3D artists, an art director, and a project manager. Finding such a group of skilled specialists requires a lot of time from the HR department. And then, the new team would need to settle in the space, install the equipment, and some time to work out standard workflows and learn to work together. 

Outsourcing 3D rendering is time-saving in terms of monitoring the process. Big 3D studios employ project and client managers who organize everything and help clients track the progress. Overall, less time and trouble — and a better result.

3. Capability

And what if the project is large-scale, time-sensitive, and requires a lot of 3D renders? And a series of photorealistic 3D animations. And on further reflection, a few 360º views, too.

Given sufficient time and technical resources, a large in-house CGI team with various skills can handle such a challenge. Hiring that many CGI professionals isn’t cheap though. Moreover, it doesn’t make sense unless large-scale projects are an everyday reality for the company.

Big CGI studios employ lots and lots of highly trained professionals of every specialization imaginable. They can serve as a single source of product 3D rendering services, or as a backup for the in-house team. 

4. Equipment

Large-scale and urgent product 3D rendering projects require special equipment and software. Let’s say, the team mainly works with still images. So to create a 3D animation, they would need to acquire specialized software, say, Cinema 4D, plugins for it, video editing tools, like Adobe After Effects. As for the equipment, creating a large animation requires a render farm — a high-performance computer system, consisting of many powerful hardware components that speed up the implementation of 3D projects. Needless to say, buying a render farm is expensive, and probably doesn’t make sense for a product brand. 

In contrast, a CGI company works on 3D rendering projects every day. So they have all the range of 3D software solutions, plugins, scripts, and render farms too. This way, a product manufacturer contacting an outsource company gets access to all these assets without buying them.

A product manufacturer can get 3D rendering services with a studio or an in-house team. Both have their pros and cons. An in-house team is a more traditional choice, with a familiar working process, and it is seemingly easier to control. Meanwhile, a CGI studio is way more budget-saving, offers more flexibility in terms of time and scale, and has its own management, project communication, and quality assessment systems.