3D CGI Demoreel
Author : ROMAN3D,
A demoreel with multiple lives
The ROMAN3D demoreel is not just a simple project gallery. It tells a visual journey built over several years, spanning professional projects, collaborations in photography, personal experiments and more narrative worlds.
Since August 4, 2022, I’d been set on the idea of offering you a 3D CGI demoreel. This final approved video was completed on May 8, 2026, early in the evening.
This project required a total of 356 hours of work (renders included) spread over 50 days. Producing it in 3D CGI meant adapting to—and fully learning—Blender, especially in terms of value for money, copyright compliance, and respecting clients’ brand image.
Only one generative AI element is present : the texture of the back wall in the theatre scene, created at the time using a European image bank that had developed its own ethical AI model for artist compensation. I kept this element so as not to distort the original project.
It’s important to note that “the logo animation in shot 1”, originally created in Maya for the teaser video, “was not included in this 356-hour total”.
Project development
Like any project of this scale, the thinking phase was no small task.
The challenge was to chain together shots with different worlds, to surprise while keeping an recognizable style and highlighting past projects.
Unlike a so-called “classic” demoreel, which simply shows past projects and broken-down elements, this demo reel is conceived as a project in its own right—a demonstration of the craft and the computing power required to achieve it.
From storyboard to 3D
The work done for this demo reel was structured around four crucial production pillars :
- Animation
- VFX (Special Effects)
- Lighting & Rendering (Lighting & Renders)
- Compositing (Compositing)
⚠️ In producing the demo reel, I’m not mentioning modeling or textures here, because many elements or scenes were reused and/or reworked (made previously or purchased via 3D asset libraries).
It’s impossible, in so little time, to make this kind of project without reusing existing elements. The biggest challenge was integrating these different assets, which led to plenty of headaches during the build.
Shot-by-shot breakdown
Shot 1 : the ROMAN3D logo
Clean and simple, it serves as a visual entry point, a brand signature and a “starting marker” before diving into more complex scenes.
This shot, while short, shows only the ROMAN3D logo, with no website mention, to keep a pure, minimalist brand image.
The logo was animated in Autodesk Maya to create a more dynamic version of the logo than the previous one, created for my first demoreel after graduating from 3D school: Old demoreel. This shot shows a set of white dots representing all the projects that combine to create the new 3D-animated logo. These dots come together gradually, like a metaphor for the synthesis of my past and present work into a single visual identity.
The original teaser video used music whose rights were limited in duration, which prevented me from reusing it as-is for this new project: Demoreel teaser.
Following many exchanges with the rights holders — who ultimately removed the music from their platform — I had to re-edit the video with a new soundtrack, chosen specifically to match the rhythm and the aesthetic of this demoreel.
Shot 2 : the book
The term “ROMAN3D” aims to highlight the common word “roman” (a fiction novel), beyond the common confusion with my first name.
It also helps create a link between the real world and the digital world, reminding us that 3D doesn’t live only on screen, but also in tangible media.
Each project can then be seen as a chapter of this book, and thecollection of scenes as a series of stories that make it up.
By entering this shot, you’re stepping into a story, both visual and narrative.
The hologram effect, meanwhile, was no small task :
It’s a nod to the 3D drone video project “Drone Day” (link below), reused here as a central visual element.
It was generated directly in Blender, then enhanced in post-production / compositing to blend better into the scene and strengthen that sense of connection between the real and the virtual.
The building, meanwhile, has a style that often sits in-between (medieval-ish, abstract), to draw a parallel with the idea that architecture and 3D are compatible, and that you can travel through time thanks to this technology, by layering styles, eras and realities.
https://roman3d.com/en/projet/drone-day/
Shot 3 : Groupe Iagona kiosks
Shot 3 highlights the interactive kiosks from Groupe Iagona : MK Evo, MK Post, MK Med, S5.
During my time at Groupe Iagona, I remodeled, cleaned up and reworked more than 35 3D models, originally created in SolidWorks by engineers, to turn them into optimized quad-based 3D scenes, intended for the Groupe Iagona Sketchfab account and for real-time.
For most of these kiosks, I had to start again from technical drawings or photos, then, from converted meshes, redo them almost entirely.
A bridge was set up between SolidWorks and Maya, but it didn’t fully streamline the process.
The difference in the nature of 3D
In engineering / SolidWorks, 3D is used to describe a mechanical part with very fine dimensional accuracy, with calculated volumes, exact thicknesses, edges, borders, fillets, sometimes details that are visually unnecessary, but crucial for manufacturing.
In animation & video games / Maya or Blender, 3D must be readable, clean, lightweight and render-friendly : few triangles, good quads, clean topology, crisp outlines, easy-to-manage materials, and above all readable surfaces under different lighting.
The mesh obtained during the conversion from SolidWorks to Maya was therefore not at all suited to 3D animation. It contained too much unnecessary geometry, extremely dense surfaces, unnecessary triangles, messy edges, facets, and “bulky” volumes, that were hard to manage in rendering and costly in compute time.
In addition, the overall structure of the shapes wasn’t designed to be readable on screen: cut-up surfaces, details that were too small, unwanted shadows, etc.
So I had to remodel a large part of these kiosks, often starting from the overall shape, but rebuilding the geometry cleanly in Maya, taking care of the topology, outlines, thicknesses, joints, while staying faithful to the original part.
Commercial promotion & marketing
It’s this work that now makes it possible to use these models both for commercial promotion (visuals, configurable scenes, interactive demos) and for more “marketing/sales” projects, while maintaining a readable, clean and credible image.
Throughout this entire process, I admire the work these engineers do: it requires tremendous rigor, great precision and a lot of time to describe each part down to the smallest detail.
My remodeling work wasn’t meant to correct their rigor, but simply to adapt their manufacturing model into a visualization model, better suited to the needs of 3D animation and real-time.
In the demoreel, this shot shows the ability to work with complex industrial objects (screens, LEDs, reflections, lighting, signage) and integrate them into coherent scenes, while maintaining product credibility.
I’d also like to thank Iagona in particular for this project on their kiosks, and for allowing me to reuse 4 of these many models for this demoreel.
👉 To learn more about Iagona kiosks, feel free to visit their dedicated site : https://borne.iagona.com/en/iagona-kiosks/
Shot 4 : the theatre scene – Les Types Louches
Shot 4 is the theatre scene, taken from the volunteer photography project done for the play “The Imaginary Invalid” by the “La compagnie des Types Louches” association, staged by Vincent Dermy as part of an initiative supporting people experiencing homelessness.
I adapted it then reused it in the demoreel as a more narrative staging moment, almost theatrical, with a stage, sets and carefully crafted lighting.
When it comes to classic literature, theatre is never far away, and Molière holds an important place in this field, both dramaturgically and in the collective imagination.
The text “+35,000 Lightroom photos” corresponds to the number of photos taken with my equipment over the past few years, then imported into Lightroom for sorting and selection.
The wall texture comes from AI, but I chose to keep it as a nod to the way the scene had been built originally, and to leave it embedded in this first visual version of the project.
To learn more about the production of the original promo video, you can read the dedicated article :
Shot 5 : throwback to the April 1st video – Baby Shark
Shot 5 is a throwback to the project “April 1st – Baby Shark”, a video conceived as a goof, but still produced with a real 3D approach.
I included it here to show that 3D can also serve absurd or offbeat projects, while remaining technically consistent with the rest of the demoreel.
The rig (3D skeleton) for the main character in the animation that I originally built no longer worked in this new version of Blender—a common issue that highlights how risky it is to update software mid-production.
So I had to quickly rebuild one using an “AutoRig”, which inevitably comes with certain limitations and typical behavior flaws.
I made sure the main character stayed fairly subtle on screen, so as not to overexpose the usual flaws of this type of automatic rig, while keeping a scene that’s instantly recognizable.
Discover the original project here:
Shot 6 : plantarium & NFT gallery
Shot 6 is the plantarium / NFT gallery, a world designed as an immersive scene, half garden, half digital space.
Plants, glass, screens, filtered light, shadows—everything is arranged to create an atmosphere, not just a render. It’s a shot where mood matters as much as technique.
This shot, in addition to being a digital virtual gallery, is a small nod to the project “Cube Led” created for Groupe Iagona, used for the ISE (Integrated Systems Europe) trade show in Barcelona, then adapted later for Oxhoo, Iagona’s subsidiary, at the Retail Technology Show in London.
I didn’t feel it was necessary to reuse the original shot for the demo reel, as its promotion was still fairly recent.
See the article about the project :
Shot 7 : ROMAN3D end logo
Shot 7 is the final ROMAN3D logo, visually similar to shot 1, but with a different animation created this time solely in After Effects.
This final version of the logo adds the associated domain names: roman3d.com and roman3d.art, to indicate that two websites currently make up ROMAN3D. The shot is placed at the end to conclude the journey.
This logo serves as a closing signature: everything starts and everything ends with the same image, to clearly remind that behind this video there is a personal identity in the background, supported by two websites that coexist and complement the project.
Why contact us ?
This ROMAN3D demoreel is not just a simple compilation of already-finished scenes.
It brings together projects, ideas and a few scenes I’ve created over the past few years, assembled to show different facets of my work :
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a book reflecting the brand identity,
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the interactive kiosks from Groupe Iagona,
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a theatre scene from the La Compagnie des Types Louches project,
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a throwback to the April 1st goof project – Baby Shark,
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a gallery / installation moment inspired by NFT worlds.
In total, it represents 356 hours of work spread over 50 days, with a large part of the 3D created or adapted for the occasion.
The software used includes Maya, Blender, Lightroom, Photoshop, Marmoset Toolbag, After Effects, Nuke and Audition.
This isn’t a complete list of projects, but a personal visual journey that I hope will take you on a trip too.
💡 Feel free to contact us to learn more or discuss a project.
