KeyShot Specialist – Plastic Material & Lighting Setup Expert

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

We are an established sports equipment brand looking for a KeyShot expert to help us move a set of product renders from a flat, CAD-preview look to true photographic realism, suitable for front-of-pack hero imagery.

This is not a standard production render job. We are specifically looking for someone who can develop and dial in the right material, texture, and lighting settings on one or two sample models, then hand over the complete settings package so our existing rendering supplier can apply the same look across our full product range in their own copy of KeyShot.

The product is a small, moulded plastic item with subtle translucency. Getting that material quality right is the crux of the brief.

We should also mention that our full product range is already set up and organised within KeyShot. Ideally, whatever material presets and lighting rig are developed through this engagement could be applied across that existing setup without having to rebuild or re-import each product individually. If you have experience structuring KeyShot material libraries and scene rigs in a way that makes them portable and easy to apply at scale, please mention this in your response.

We will share full project details, reference images, and the CAD model (STEP format) with the shortlisted candidate under a mutual NDA before work begins.


WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU BEFORE WE SHORTLIST

Rather than a standard cover letter, please answer the following five questions. Your answers will carry more weight than your portfolio in our decision. Honest, specific answers are far more useful to us than vague ones.

1. Which version of KeyShot do you work in, and how long have you been using it professionally?

2. When rendering a soft, slightly translucent plastic (such as a sports mouthguard, silicone grip, or similar), which material type or shader do you use in KeyShot, and what are the two or three settings you pay most attention to in order to get that quality right?

3. How do you approach lighting a small plastic product for a front-of-pack hero shot? Describe your typical setup, including how you use (or choose not to use) an HDRI environment.

4. Once a look is approved, how would you package your settings so that another KeyShot user on a different machine could replicate the result? What files would you provide, and how would you structure those settings so they could be applied across a pre-existing library of models in KeyShot, rather than being tied to a single scene file?

5. Please share one or two examples of previous work involving plastic, rubber, or similarly translucent materials. Links are fine.


BUDGET AND TIMELINE

Fixed price preferred. To be agreed once we have shortlisted. This is a focused, bounded piece of work rather than an ongoing contract.