When most people think of 3D, they picture blockbuster films, ultra-realistic video games, or polished product visuals. But as Michael Tanzillo — a seasoned lighting artist, educator, and now creative tech evangelist at Adobe — has come to realize, 3D isn’t just about creating stunning visuals. It’s about connecting people, solving real-world problems, and reimagining how industries work.
And it’s far bigger than entertainment.
Tanzillo joins host Mike Festa on the latest episode of The Future Of (video below). The two look back at Tanzillo’s journey through animated filmmaking — and quickly expand into a sweeping conversation about where 3D is headed next. From fashion to industrial design, museums to aerospace, 3D is evolving from a creative medium into something more essential: infrastructure.
More than an interview, the episode feels like a roadmap. Tanzillo’s insights reveal how 3D is quietly becoming a critical layer across industries — and how artists, technologists, and creators alike can be part of what’s next.
From Blue Sky to the Unknown: A New Perspective
Tanzillo’s story begins in the glow of animated films. He spent nearly two decades at Blue Sky Studios, lighting iconic scenes in movies like Ice Age, Rio, and Peanuts. Like many artists, his early obsession with visual storytelling began with a single aha moment — watching the behind-the-scenes of Finding Nemo, realizing that color, mood, and light could be narrative tools as powerful as dialogue.
But years into his film career, something shifted. Not creatively, but structurally. Studios shuttered, pipelines changed, and the question of “what’s next” became personal.
And it turns out, what’s next was everywhere.
3D Has Left the Building
“The first time I really started seeing 3D used outside of film, I was floored,” Tanzillo recalls. “E-commerce, fashion, footwear, industrial design — all of them were not just using 3D, they were desperate to scale it.”
These weren’t companies looking to make “pretty images.” They wanted data integrity, workflow efficiency, pixel precision — because 3D had become integral to how they designed, validated, and sold products.
What surprised Tanzillo even more was the talent gap. “I saw all these companies struggling to find skilled 3D people, while so many of my peers in entertainment were getting laid off. And they just didn’t know each other existed.”
Two Worlds, One Bridge
This realization became his mission: to build a bridge between entertainment-trained 3D artists and the exploding demand in commercial and industrial sectors.
The result? A growing community called The 3D Artist, and a new career path inside Adobe’s Substance 3D team — a platform that’s helping reshape 3D workflows across industries.
For many artists, it’s a paradigm shift. In film, beauty is everything. In fashion or industrial design? Accuracy rules.
Tanzillo recalls a project where he recreated a beautiful 3D plaid shirt for a major apparel brand. “They loved the look, but then asked: What size is this? How did you scale the pattern? I had no idea. They weren’t looking for an ad. They were using 3D to validate physical production. That moment flipped everything for me.”
3D Is Not a Medium, It’s a Language
- The versatility of 3D today is staggering. It’s being used to:
- Train frontline workers via immersive simulations
- Analyze the structural degradation of ancient artifacts
- Reduce waste in fashion prototyping
- Personalize shopping experiences through AR try-ons
- Optimize product lifecycles with digital twins
It’s not about crafting a single perfect render anymore — it’s about building scalable systems that allow iteration, collaboration, and data integration.
And the tools have followed suit. With Substance Painter becoming the Photoshop of 3D, and real-time engines like Unreal and Unity driving immersive experiences, the barrier to entry is lower, but the breadth of use cases is higher than ever.
The AI Question: What Can’t Be Automated?
No future-looking article is complete without addressing the big disruptor: AI.
Tanzillo’s stance is clear. “Generative AI has opened doors, yes. But it also can’t deliver the precision needed for real product imagery. Brands want pixel-perfect control. And AI doesn’t understand nuance — not in brand consistency, material accuracy, or physical simulation.”
Instead, he believes AI is best used alongside human creativity. It can suggest, accelerate, remix — but not replace. Especially not in fields where quality, compliance, and craft matter.
“In the end,” Tanzillo says, “what companies need is not just an image, but confidence. Confidence that what they’re seeing is real, accurate, and manufacturable. That comes from good 3D — and great 3D artists.”
Building a New Creative Home
If the future of 3D is collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and community-led, then we need spaces to nurture that.
That’s why Tanzillo’s The 3D Artist isn’t just a school or Discord server. It’s a self-sustaining co-op. Members pay a small monthly fee, which goes right back into shared licenses, workshops, and coaching. Proposals get voted on. Finances are transparent. And the vibe? Closer to a local community center than a traditional forum.
He describes it as a “third space” — not work, not home, but a place where you can be vulnerable, curious, and heard. The kind of space creative professionals rarely get, especially in a post-COVID, remote-first world.
It’s not about scale, he says. It’s about sustainability and support.
What the Future Actually Looks Like
So what does the future of 3D look like, according to someone who’s seen it from every angle?
“It’s about integration,” Tanzillo says. “3D will no longer be a special department. It’ll be embedded in product design, marketing, engineering, and operations. It’ll be used not just to visualize, but to test, to train, to predict.”
It also means artists need to rethink their value.
“In film, your goal is the final frame. Outside of that, your goal might be the right data, the right user interaction, the right scale. The moment you make that mental shift, your opportunities explode.”
And most of all, it means we need to change how we talk about 3D. Too many roles go unfilled because companies and artists don’t speak the same language. A “material artist” in games might be perfect for a “digital CMF designer” in footwear — they just don’t know it.
Tanzillo’s work is now about fixing that — through content, coaching, and community.
Final Thoughts: This Is Only the Beginning
The promise of 3D isn’t limited to render engines and viewport quality. It’s about utility meeting artistry. It’s about scaling creativity, not replacing it. And it’s about building new pathways for talent that go beyond linear careers.
As the worlds of entertainment, e-commerce, education, and enterprise collide — 3D is the common ground. And artists like Michael Tanzillo are proving that the future is more connected, more accessible, and more creative than we ever imagined.
Because the truth is: 3D isn’t just a tool. It’s becoming a way of seeing the world.
Header image credit: Vighnesh Dudani on Unsplash
SuperDNA 3D Lab is a full-service 3D solutions provider. It creates 3D content, distributes it across various channels, and manages it in its own cloud servers for elevated eCommerce and other endpoints.
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