What happens before you open KeyShot
Look at any "making of" video, and you see a clean jump from sketch to final 3D render. This is a lie.
The Informal Phase
Between the napkin sketch and the KeyShot scene, there is a massive, messy gap. This is where the real design happens. It is filled with:
- Screenshots: Raw viewport grabs from SolidWorks or Rhino.
- Over-painting: Photoshop scribbles over those contour lines.
- Mood-boarding: Dragging reference images next to the CAD window.
- Camera Guessing: Trying to align a view manually to "see how it feels."
This phase is informal. The files are named "final_final_v2_USETHIS.jpg". There is no version control. It is chaotic.
The Hidden Cost: Self-Censorship
Because this phase is unstructured and disconnected from the final output, designers often self-censor. They filter ideas in their head before even trying them.
"I won't try that material combination because I don't have time to set it up in the renderer later."
They curate the "safe" options to bring into 3D, limiting the exploration space to what fits in the schedule. The heavy lift of the downstream tools acts as a gatekeeper to upstream creativity.
The Insight: Formalizing the Mess
The best idea might be the one you didn't have time to try. We need to stop treating this "pre-render" phase as a throwaway step.
This phase defines the product. It deserves its own tooling. It shouldn't just be screenshots and scribbles; it should be a structured exploration.
The New Model: Structured Exploration
Some teams are starting to formalize this phase using new visualization tools designed specifically for speed and breadth. Instead of jumping straight to the "perfect" render, they widen the funnel.
They rapidly generate variations—different standard CMF sets, lighting conditions, and environment contexts—on crude geometry. They use software to act as a multiplier for exploration, not just a simulator of physics.
By validating the "what" and the "why" in this early phase, the "how" (the final KeyShot setup) becomes purely execution. You stop solving design problems in your rendering software.