Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra

Overview

A personal hard-surface study of the Roborock S7 MaxV Ultra robot vacuum and its docking station. I modeled both in Blender and rendered them as a short 4:5 film and fifteen portrait stills, moving from macro details to full product shots.

The challenge

A robot vacuum is mostly a black disc, which gives the camera very little to hold on to. The job was to make it read as a premium object: separate black plastic from black plastic, keep small details like the lidar turret, vents and tank icons legible, and give a household appliance some atmosphere.

Approach

1. I modeled the robot and dock as hard-surface assets in Blender, down to the vented lidar turret, the bumper grilles and the clean and dirty water tank lids with their drop icons.
2. For the main set I kept everything near-black and let the lighting do the separation. Striped shadows rake across the dock and the gloss panels pick up soft highlights, while Roborock's orange accents and a few monstera leaves bring in the color.
3. A second set swaps the dark room for a warm orange backdrop pulled from those same accents. Out-of-focus leaves in the foreground add depth to the closer shots.
4. I finished with a white clay pass that strips out color and gloss, so the forms and the light can be read on their own.