The Future of 3D Asset Creation
Deep Dive on 3D AI Studio
Key Insights
3D AI Studio: Company Evaluation and Opportunity For Growth
3D AI Studio stands out amongst its competitors with a rich and carefully curated feature set catering to multiple parts of 3D artists’ / developers’ workflow. The platform has a strong product-market fit, evidenced by its fast growing user base and revenues.
We recognize the sizable opportunity for further user adoption in 3D AI Studio. The company has ~300k users today. In comparison, the most widely used 3D modeling platform today, Blender, has ~3 million users on the platform and over 20 million downloads in 2023 alone.
With generative AI significantly reducing the time requirement for 3D asset production, we may potentially see a significantly larger volume of 3D assets created, in which enablers like 3D AI Studio will be key beneficiaries for monetization.
While the value proposition of 3D AI Studio and other (high-quality) AI-driven tools are clear, we expect user adoption to remain slow.
Existing 3D artists and developers today are well familiar with tools like Blender, and may be unwilling to try and learn new tools. Newer 3D artists and developers are likely first-adopters of generative 3D tools.
As newer cohorts continue to use these generative tools, and older cohorts mature, we will gradually see increasing adoption and usage of generative 3D tools.
Key Risks and Mitigating Factors
While the current landscape for AI enabled 3D generation is still nascent and fragmented, incumbents like 3D AI Studio face high competitive threat from potential (well-resourced) entrants like game engines, large tech, and other well funded startups.
The likelihood and impact of such potential threats are high, given the sizable overlap in customer base and use cases. Nonetheless, incumbents can extend their moat and stickiness by consistently adding more features, further embedding themselves within artists’ workflows.
As the platform becomes further ingrained in the workflows of artists, this forms an implicit network effect as newer cohorts of artists learn best workflow practices from the more experienced cohorts, and as more user-generated content and resources are published.
3D AI Studio: Company Overview
3D AI Studio is a platform that serves to drastically reduce the time and cost of 3D modeling and procurement. The company is founded by Jan Hammer, a 3D artist and developer who has been in the industry for ~5 years
3D AI Studio primarily serves the pain points of smaller 3D art / animation studios, (indie) game developers and freelancers:
Modeling and texturing 3D assets are extremely time consuming, and creating certain models require specific expertise on the use of platforms like Blender, Zbrush, most of which have a steep learning curve.
Indie game developers, as a result of resource constraints, often rely heavily on store-bought assets to create game content, which are at times costly, and are imperfect substitutes of the unique art-style they initially set out to create.
The platform provides an easy-to-use interface for users to generate 3D models through text prompts, or by referencing an image. The platform leverages open-sourced AI models through Hugging Face, and allows 3D models generated to be imported to Blender (main software tool used by 3D modelers) in a single button.
Size of Prize
The 3D Digital Asset market is estimated at $26B in 2023, and is expected to grow at a 10-year CAGR of 14%, reaching $91B by 2033.
Demand for high-quality 3D assets are driven by growth in end-markets such as gaming, film production, AR / VR, and eCommerce
Video Gaming driving Demand for 3D Assets
The Video Gaming sector is a key demand driver for 3D Assets. The Video Game market is extremely competitive, as publishers and game studios compete for gamers’ time and wallet share.
Increasing consumer expectations for more immersive experiences have led to exponential increases in game development budgets. For example, GTA 6’s budget is expected to be $2B, a 7x budget increase from the last GTA 5 Franchise of $265M, and a 20x budget increase from GTA 4.
Other demand drivers include:
Advancements in AR / VR technologies leading to increased consumer adoption. 3D assets play a critical role in the creation of these immersive AR / VR experiences
Greater demand for richer eCommerce experiences driving online retailers to provide 3D assets to allow customers to visualize their products in a more interactive and realistic manner
Opportunity for AI Penetration
3D asset creation is costly, time consuming and requires highly-skilled human expertise, generally involving the following steps:
2D Sketch (Planning) ⇒ Modeling ⇒ Sculpting ⇒ Texturing ⇒ Lighting and Shading ⇒ Rendering
Industries that utilize 3D assets have a high quality bar, and 3D assets go through stringent production standards such as precise mesh structures, high-resolution textures, and material maps.
Depending on the complexity of the asset created, creation of a single 3D asset may take up to 4-8 weeks.
Time spent on 3D Rifle Creation for a Video Game
3D modeling has traditionally required a highly technical skill-set. A 3D modeler / artist needs to be proficient with specific software tools like Blender, 3DS and Maya:
On average, freelance 3D modelers may charge anywhere from $25 to $100 per hour.
Rates for professional studios may range from $75 to $200 per hour or more.
AAA games with large gameplay loops require a large volume of high quality 3D assets. For example, popular games like Guild Wars 2 might require close to 400,000 3D assets.
AI Adoption today
The opportunity for AI to permeate into traditional 3D asset generation is still nascent. Based on a16z’s AI x Game Development Survey, about 35% of studios use AI for 3D prototyping and greybox level design, and 30% of studios use AI tools to generate production assets (that require manual touch-ups).
a16z’s AI x Game development Survey
3D AI Studio: Product Deep-dive
The platform provides an easy-to-use interface for users to generate 3D models through text prompts, or by referencing an image. The platform leverages open-sourced AI models through Hugging Face, and allows 3D models generated to be imported to Blender (main software tool used by 3D modelers) in a single button.
While most generic image AI tools (e.g., Midjourney, Stable Diffusion) help 3D artists create quick prototypes (primarily on a 2D canvas), 3D AI Studio strives to provide tools to streamline workflow efficiency of 3D artists, game developers, and animators beyond the prototyping phase. Jan envisions the platform to be the go-to tool for its users.
Outside of its core text-to-3D and image-to-3D feature set, the platform boasts a full suite of tools to assist artists and animators to improve their workflow efficiency
Example illustration of user workflow
Image Upscaling: Upscales 2D image before converting it into a 3D asset
Generates a 3D model from an image with a single click
Allows for precise re-texturing on specific parts of the 3D model
Remeshing tool for use cases such as 3D printing and animation
Easy import to other workflows: Asset built in 3D AI Studio imported into Unreal Engine
Lora Studio feature allows users to train their own image model for 3D assets to be generated in a specific style of the user’s choice
Business Model
3D AI Studio Offers a monthly subscription across 3 tiers, which differ primarily in the number of credits granted each month.
A basic tier allows you 1,000 credits / month, which allows you to generate roughly 50 assets through Text-to-3D (25 credits per use). Image to 3D and model refinement costs 30 credits per use
Users can also top-up additional credits with one-time payments. Additional top-ups are only available for users who are subscribed to any of the monthly plans.
Growth / Product-Market Fit
The company launched on Feb ’24 and got 5K user sign-ups in the first 4 days.
By Nov '24, it reached ~$500K ARR (+66% MoM) from $300K ARR in Oct ’24
There are approximately ~300K creators on the platform with 2K total assets created.
Company has been profitable since day-one
Go To Market
Jan started out using Reddit and Twitter to engage with developers and artists. As the feature set of 3D AI Studio improves over time, it saw strong organic growth through word of mouth within the developer and artist community.
Artists have also started sharing tutorials on how they use 3D AI Studio, which further boosts visibility and traffic into the platform.
X post shared by a professional VFX artist using 3D AI Studio
Jan also leverages google ads to drive traffic to its platform. Through a mix of paid / organic traffic, its website gets ~2-3k clicks daily, and boasts a healthy CTR of 8.8% when compared with other B2B / B2C SaaS platforms (~3%)
Web Traffic Performance of 3D AI Studio
Competitive Landscape
Direct Competitors
Meshy.ai – Founded by Ethan Hu (PhD, Computer Science at MIT)
Likely the closest competitor to 3D AI Studios, with a similar feature set (Text and 2D to 3D, Texture enhancement and remeshing).
Meshy.ai’s product suite also allows for rigging and animations to be done within its platform
A16z’s AI x Game Development Survey noted that Meshy was one of the top 10 AI tools used by Game developers
Meshy.ai’s rigging and animation tool
Shutterstock + NVIDIA’s Edify:
Shutterstock collaborated with NVIDIA’s Edify to provide 3D generative capabilities.
Its 3D generative features are powered by a custom model trained on Shutterstock’s large database of licensed images, as well as over a million licensed 3D models from TurboSquid (owned by Shutterstock)
Generative features can only be accessed through API integration with platforms like Blender, which could potentially deter less savvy 3D artists from using this feature.
Shutterstock’s 3D generation through Blender
Other long-tail (e.g., Hyper3D, Tripo3D, Luma Labs, Sloyd)
Most of these platforms are significantly less feature-rich, and are unlikely able to enable the workflows of 3D artists / developers beyond the prototyping phase.
Other Potential Disruptors
World Labs
World Labs aims to build Large World Models that have spatial intelligence, and can understand and reason around the 3D world from images and other modalities.
The company was co-founded in 2024 by Fei Fei Li. Li was best known for creating ImageNet, a large-scale visual database that has been instrumental in advancing computer vision technologies
While it does not have a commercially ready product today, the company has raised significant funding of over $230M in funding from notable VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, and is valued at over $1B.
World Labs targets to have its first product ready in 2025. While the company is primarily focused on building 3D environments, we may potentially see an overlap with 3D AI Studio’s feature set
Big Tech
In December 2024, Google’s Deepmind introduced Genie 2, a foundation world model capable of generating action-controllable, playable 3D environments.
Based on a single prompt image, it can generate environments which are playable by a human or AI agent using keyboard and mouse inputs.
Currently, Genie 2 is accessible only to select developers and testers, and is not available to the general masses
Similar to World Labs, the company is focused on building 3D environments
Genie 2 foundation world model 3D playable environment preview
Investment / Exit Opportunity
Investment:
3D AI Studio was fully bootstrapped by Jan, and currently has a small team. However, Jan has noted keen interest in expanding his team to speed up product releases. Given the speed of innovation in this space, there may be an opportunity where the company seeks to raise external capital.
Exit:
The company is a ripe acquisition target for larger adjacent players that serve a similar customer base – game engines like Unreal and Unity, or existing 3D software tools like Blender, Maya, and Adobe may view 3D AI Studio as a prime acquisition target.