Journal
The CMF swatch is your most important render reference
Colour, material and finish decide whether a render reads as real. Here is how we brief them.
Ines Calder
5 min
A render looks fake for one reason more than any other: the materials are guessed. The geometry can be perfect and the lighting cinematic, but a soft-touch plastic rendered as gloss will never read as real.
Brief finishes, not colours
Send us the physical CMF swatch board if you have one, or the supplier references if you don’t. We photograph swatches under controlled light and match roughness, sheen and texture before a single hero frame is lit.
The three finishes that need the most care
Bead-blasted aluminium, knitted fabric and translucent plastics. Each behaves differently at macro distances, and each is where a sharp-eyed buyer spots the difference first.
A good CMF brief turns lookdev from a week of guesswork into two days of matching.
Launch strategy
Why your pre-order page should launch before your prototype does
Hardware teams wait for samples to start marketing. The ones that win start the day the CAD freezes.
6 min
Production
The CMF swatch is your most important render reference
Colour, material and finish decide whether a render reads as real. Here is how we brief them.
5 min
Studio
Inside a 30-day launch: from STEP file to hero film
A week-by-week look at how a Tesel launch film is planned, approved and rendered.
8 min