How Sennep used exactly.ai to accelerate 3D game development

Sennep is an independent design studio known for crafting interactive and playful experiences, but even the most creative teams run into a familiar constraint: time.

Building 3D assets is slow, specialist work. Each new game level meant hours of sketching, concepting, and refining – and the in-house illustrator was stretched so thin that progress on one major project began to stall.

The challenge – keeping creativity moving under pressure

Founder and Creative Director Matt Rice explained that the workload had grown so heavy that creative production itself was slowing – not for lack of ideas, but for lack of hours. The process behind a 3D game is immense – thousands of frames, animated sequences, storyboarding, and character design. Even the early idea stage can take weeks just to visualise a single world or level concept. For a lean studio, that level of iteration quickly becomes a creative and operational strain.

Sennep needed a way to reclaim time from repetitive asset creation without compromising the distinctive quality that defines their work or the identity of the project. The goal: speed up creation without losing the Sennep feel.

The solution – training a custom AI model in their own style

Using exactly.ai, Sennep trained three private styles built around the visual identities they had developed for their clients and in-house projects. They uploaded 10–12 existing visuals, teaching the model to generate on-brand characters and environments within seconds based on prompts.

Before, designing even a few frames of a game meant weeks or months of iteration – sketching, testing, refining, and rebuilding ideas just to reach a storyboard, let alone finished assets. exactly.ai made that ideation phase dramatically faster and more exploratory. The styles didn’t just execute an idea; they expanded on it – offering new angles and unexpected variations that sometimes pushed the creative direction forward in ways the team hadn’t anticipated.

By automating the heavy lift of repetitive illustration, rendering, and visual production, the team could redirect energy to high-impact creative decisions.

“Exactly allowed us to produce a plethora of new ideas and opened up the project again to make it possible.”

– Matt Rice, Founder and Creative Director, Sennep

The reclaimed time reignited momentum. Development picked back up, new ideas flowed, and the refreshed visuals brought the game world to life in ways the team hadn’t imagined. The project crossed the finish line ahead of schedule and pushed the project through to completion – proving that the right creative system can do more than save time; it can reshape how a studio delivers its best work.

Extending the benefits beyond game design

The gains didn’t stop at one project. Hege Aaby, Founder and Design Strategist, shared how the same trained styles now help Sennep meet rising client demand. With exactly.ai, the team can create new visuals quickly, keeping quality high even as expectations grow.

“In the world we live in now, clients want more for less, and exactly.ai has helped us speed up the process.”

– Hege Aaby, Founder and Design Strategist, Sennep

For a small studio, client demand can eat into creative space. The pressure to deliver can flatten experimentation and drain the spark from projects. exactly.ai changed that dynamic, giving Sennep room to explore ideas while meeting deadlines. It became less a tool and more a force multiplier for the business, keeping the quality bar high without overextending the team.

The result: more ideas, fewer bottlenecks

With exactly.ai embedded in their workflow, Sennep can:

Maintain stylistic consistency across every generated asset

Rapidly iterate on concepts without sacrificing quality

Focus on complex, high-value creative work rather than repetitive tasks

Sennep’s team has found a balance between human creativity and automation – turning AI into a genuine partner in design.