Explainer video style · Early ray-traced 3D

1990s 3D render style explainer videos

Shiny 1990s computer 3D: chrome spheres, checkerboards, lens flare. Brief it in one sentence and get a narrated, animated explainer film in the Early ray-traced 3D style, scored and voiced, in about 15 minutes.

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Or let the director choose a style for your topic.

A frame in the Early ray-traced 3D style

What it looks like, and when to use it.

Glossy plastic shapes with one hard highlight each, chrome spheres, a mirrored checkerboard floor and lens flares, like an early-1990s computer demo. Early ray-traced 3D is drawn in code without a 3D engine, and scenes arrive as a green wireframe before they fill in. It is retro and playful, for geometry, light and anything about computers.

Best for

Computers and retro tech
Geometry, light and optics
Playful product demos

Try a brief like

“How a computer draws a 3D picture”
“Why mirrors flip left and right”
“What made 1990s graphics look like that”

The art direction the director follows.

Every style is a full art direction, not a filter: its own palette, type, motion and music. This is the brief the director works from for Early ray-traced 3D.

Look: Drawn in code, with no 3D engine and no generated images: the look of early-1990s ray-traced computer graphics. Glossy plastic objects, each with one hard white highlight, darkened edges and a coloured ambient rim; chrome spheres reflecting the room; a perspective checkerboard floor with mirror reflections; primitive shapes (cones, spheres, cylinders, rings of beads); toy-like figures with ball joints; a teal room and a pink-purple sunset over wireframe mountains; lens flares.
Motion: Proud demo-reel motion: primitives spin to show off their shading, a chrome sphere's reflection slides, lens flares pulse and turn their rays, highlights glide across glass, objects move smoothly and slowly. Scene change: the new scene appears first as a green wireframe, then fills in line by line like a scanline render.
Music: Early-1990s computer-demo music: bright FM synths, digital pads, crisp drum machine, an optimistic tech-showcase feel.
Type: A wide bevelled tech sans (Eurostile-like) with a chrome gradient fill and a hard white highlight, or a plain monospace label like render output.