The 3D settings section in the configurator sidebar controls how this product's 3D viewer looks and behaves. It is separate from the site-wide options described under 3D configurator, which decide what the viewer is capable of loading.
Opening 3D settings replaces the sidebar with its own list of sections. Use the back arrow to return.
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Environment | The lighting and reflections the model receives |
| Background | What is drawn behind the model |
| Shadows | The shadow under the product |
| Display | Loading poster, canvas layout, orbit hint, hidden objects |
| Renderer / Output | Tone mapping, exposure, transparency |
| Camera positions (views) | Saved angles, and how far the customer can rotate and zoom |
| AR / Quick Look | Augmented reality, with 3D Premium |
| Postprocessing | Photographic effects, with 3D Premium |
| Reset settings | Back to the defaults |
Environment
The environment map controls reflections and image-based lighting — in practice, most of whether the product looks convincing.
- Environment source — None for unlit or baked-lighting models, one of the built-in presets (Outdoor, the default, or Studio), or an environment you added to the 3D Objects list.
- Environment intensity — how strongly it lights the model.
- Environment rotation — turns the environment around the product. This moves highlights and reflections across the surfaces, and is often the fastest way to make a render look right.
- Environment blur — softens the lighting and the reflections together. Useful when a detailed environment casts distracting shapes across glossy surfaces. The more blur, the less rotation changes anything, since it is the sharp reflections that show it.
The environment lights the model but is never drawn behind it. What appears behind the model is set under Background.
Background
- Background mode — Transparent (the default) shows the page behind the viewer. Solid color fills the viewer with one colour. With 3D Premium there is also Image: see Background image and colour changes.
- Background color — used when the mode is Solid color.
Shadows
Shadow type decides how the product is grounded:
- No shadow.
- Fake shadow — a soft shadow rendered under the product. Cheap, and enough for most products.
- Real-time shadows — shadows cast by lights in the scene. More convincing, and more demanding.
Start with the fake shadow. A product grounded by a simple shadow reads better than one floating in space, and costs almost nothing.
Both types have Shadow opacity and Shadow blur / softness.
Fake shadow
- Soft shadow — the broad shadow cast by the product as a whole. This carries most of the weight.
- Contact shadow — the tight darkening where the product meets the ground. Set it to
0for a product that should read as floating. - Vertical offset — the shadow sits at the lowest point of the product. Use a negative value to drop it to the floor below a product that hovers.
Real-time shadows
- Use a dedicated shadow light — on by default. A light that casts the shadow without lighting the product, so the shadow falls where you want it whatever is lighting the scene. Aim it with:
- Shadow elevation — degrees above the horizon. Low angles throw the shadow out to one side; overhead tucks it under the product.
- Shadow direction — degrees around the product, deciding which way the shadow falls.
- Add a ground plane — an invisible surface under the product for the shadow to fall on. It sizes itself to the shadow, including the long shadow a low angle throws. Leave it off for a product modelled with its own base, which already has somewhere to catch the shadow.
Display
Loading poster
Poster image is an optional image shown while the viewer loads, fading out once the model is ready. On a heavy model this is the difference between a blank area and something that looks intentional.
Layout
Extend viewer under toolbar stretches the canvas beneath the toolbar, so the background fills the whole configurator. The product stays framed beside the menu; the theme decides which side is offset.
Orbit hint
Show the orbit hint is on by default. The first time a visitor sees a 3D product, a short "drag to rotate" prompt appears over the model, so it does not read as a still image. It disappears as soon as they rotate anything, and is not shown again for the rest of their visit.
With 3D Premium, hotspots wait for the hint to settle before they appear.
Hidden objects
Some objects in a model exist to help you author it, not to be seen. Names such as product_bounding_box and material_placeholders are always hidden automatically.
Custom hidden object names adds your own, one name per line.
Renderer / Output
Overall brightness and image quality.
- Tone mapping — how bright values are mapped to the screen:
- Filmic (ACES) — recommended. Rolls bright areas off smoothly instead of clipping them, the way a camera does. It lets you raise exposure to open up dark areas without blowing out highlights.
- Linear — brightness is multiplied and then clipped. Bright areas turn flat white with no detail.
- None — values pass through untouched.
- Exposure — overall brightness.
- Alpha output — whether the rendered image carries transparency.
If you change nothing else here, use Filmic (ACES) and adjust Exposure. That pair does more for the result than everything else on this page.
Camera positions (views)
Saved views
The angles the customer can switch between, equivalent to views in a 2D configurator. Angles are added in the configurator's Views section; this is where each one gets its camera.
- Pick an Angle, move the preview to where it should look from, and press Set current view to selected angle.
- Import cameras from GLTF creates angles from cameras already defined in the main model file, rather than recreating them by hand. If whoever built the model set up cameras, start here.
Rotation limits
How far the customer may orbit the camera around the product.
- Min / Max vertical angle —
0°looks straight down,90°is the horizon,180°looks straight up. The default stops at the horizon, so the customer can't look from underneath. Keep both close to90°to lock the camera to a level view. - Min / Max horizontal angle — degrees around the product. Leave them at
-180/180for a full turn.
Limiting the vertical angle is usually worth doing: most products have an underside nobody modelled properly.
Zoom limits
Restrict how far the shopper can zoom in and out is on by default. Rather than typing distances, move the preview to the closest view you want to allow and press Set from current view next to Closest zoom, then do the same for Farthest zoom.
The preview obeys the limits too, which makes it impossible to zoom past a limit to set a wider one. Untick the option while you set the limits, then tick it again.
Rotation and zoom limits apply in the preview and on the front end alike.
AR / Quick Look
Requires 3D Premium. Without it, this section shows a short description of the feature, which you can hide.
Enable AR (View in your space) lets customers open the configured product in augmented reality on supported phones and tablets, through iOS Quick Look and Android WebXR.
- AR scale — Allow scaling in AR, or Fixed scale (furniture) for anything that must appear at true size.
- USDZ max texture size (iOS) — caps texture size in the file generated for iOS. Empty means no cap.
Models should be authored in metres for real-world scale to come out right. See Augmented reality.
Postprocessing
Requires 3D Premium. Without it, this section shows a short description of the feature, which you can hide.
Effects applied to the finished image, chosen as a Look: None, Soft shadows, Studio product photo, Showroom, Emissive glow, or Custom to pick each effect yourself. A separate On mobile setting runs a reduced version on phones. The same look is applied to the images saved with the order.
See Postprocessing for what each look does and the custom controls.
Reset settings
Restores all 3D viewer settings for this product to their defaults, across every section above, including the 3D Premium ones. It does not touch your layers, choices or 3D objects.