The editor has a new 3D tab, and it works. Pick from six 3D shapes — cube, sphere, cylinder, cone, pyramid, ring — drop them on any canvas, set your lighting, adjust the camera angle, and build a poster that looks like it was rendered in a design studio. Tools like Pacdora built their reputation on exactly this kind of visual weight. It is now in the LazyDog editor, and it works at any canvas size.
What the 3D Tab Does
The 3D tab is a dedicated workspace for three-dimensional design. It gives you camera controls, shot types, shadow settings, colour presets for the 3D objects, and a full lighting panel — all in one row at the top of the editor. Open it, and the Elements rail gains a 3D Objects category with all six shapes ready to place.
Six shapes to start: Cube, Sphere, Cylinder, Pyramid, Cone, and Ring. Each one is a proper 3D-rendered object — not a flat illustration with a drop shadow pretending to be 3D. Place one on the canvas and it sits with genuine depth, catching whatever light you give it. Move it, resize it, layer it under text, or float it alongside other canvas elements. It behaves like any other editor object, except it looks nothing like one.
Camera Angles and Shot Types
The camera controls are what turn a placed object into a composition. Six fixed angles are available: Front, Right, Back, Left, Top, and Bottom. Then 45° view, Isometric, and Custom angle for when none of the fixed ones land quite right. Orbit 360° lets you spin the entire 3D scene freely until the perspective is exactly what you are after.
Shot type works alongside the angle. Close-up fills the frame with the object. Wide shot pulls back and shows more of the scene. Normal zoom sits between the two and works for most layouts. These three controls — angle, orbit, and shot — are enough to go from a top-down product view to a dramatic isometric scene without touching anything else.
Lighting That Actually Changes the Result
Lighting is a separate panel on the right side of the 3D tab, and it matters as much as the camera. Eight presets cover the most common needs:
- Softbox — even, diffused fill with no hard shadows. The default. Works for clean, professional results without trying.
- Spot — a hard directional beam that throws a defined shadow. The right choice for dramatic hiring posters, bold product announcements, and anything where you want the object to feel lit from above.
- Area — broad, soft light from one side. Good for a sense of space around the object.
- Tube — a long light source that wraps light around curved surfaces. Useful for spheres and cylinders.
- RGB — coloured lighting for tech, gaming, and creative industry designs.
- Warm studio / Cool studio — the two ends of a professional studio look. Warm for lifestyle and retail, cool for corporate and tech.
- Disco / Multi-light — multiple coloured sources for event visuals, party content, and anything that should feel energetic.
Shadow on and Shadow off are a single click. Turn shadow off when a 3D object needs to float cleanly on a dark background. Turn it on when you want it to feel grounded on the canvas.
Colour for Every Object
The Colour section of the 3D tab sets the material colour of the 3D objects on the canvas. Seven presets cover the most-used finishes: Red, Gold, Blue, Purple, White, Green, and Black. A More colours button opens the full picker for anything outside those seven.
Gold works well for titles and hero text rendered in 3D. Silver and white are the natural choice for geometric accent shapes — cubes and spheres that sit alongside a photo or a text block without competing with it. Blue is where a sphere becomes a planet. Red makes any shape feel urgent. Combine a gold object with a dark navy background and Spot lighting, and the result looks like it came out of a professional render farm — because in a meaningful sense, it did.
Hexa 3D — Describe the Scene, Get the Scene
The 3D tab has a Describe your scene button alongside the camera controls. Type what you want in plain language — gold 3D text "WE ARE HIRING" at the top, silver cube on the left, blue sphere on the right, spot light, isometric view — and Hexa renders a complete 3D scene directly on the canvas. Not a stock illustration and not a placeholder. A generated 3D render, placed as a live element you can relight and reposition straight away.
This is the fastest route from a blank canvas to a poster with real depth. One sentence, one render, and the scene is there. Adjust the lighting, change the camera angle, add text panels around it — or use it exactly as generated. Either way, the scene is yours in under a minute.
The Kind of Work This Makes Possible
Three things that now take minutes instead of hours, or a specialist tool:
- Hiring posters with real depth. A dark navy background, gold "WE ARE HIRING" text rendered in 3D, a silver cube on the left, a blue sphere on the right, Spot lighting from above — all composed inside the editor, exported as a PNG, ready to post. No Photoshop. No Pacdora. No external render.
- Product launch announcements. A 3D object centre-frame — a sphere, a cube, a ring — lit cleanly with Softbox or Cool studio, with a text panel and a call-to-action bar built in the same canvas. The 3D element gives the design the weight a flat illustration never can.
- Event and social banners at any size. The 3D layer scales with the canvas. It works at Instagram square, Facebook cover, LinkedIn banner, or a printed A3 poster without any adjustment. Set the size, drop the shape, light it, add your text.
How It Sits in the Editor
The 3D tab does not replace or move anything. Home, Insert, Draw, Design, Transitions, Animations, Slide Show, Review, View, and Format are all exactly where they were. The 3D tab sits after Animations. Open it when you want 3D elements. Ignore it when you don't. Nothing is rearranged to make room for it.
3D objects added from the Elements rail behave like any other canvas element. They stack in the Layers panel, they respond to Bring to front and Send to back, and they sit alongside shapes, text boxes, and panels built in the same session. The only thing different about them is what they look like.
What This Changes
Before this update, building a design with genuine 3D visual presence meant leaving the editor entirely — going to a dedicated tool like Pacdora, rendering a flat image, re-importing it, and working around the seams between two different applications. That is now one workflow in one place. The 3D tab handles the depth. The rest of the editor handles the layout, typography, and panels around it.
The result is a type of design that was genuinely out of reach for a browser-based editor. It is not out of reach any more.
Related: the updated Insert tab and layouts