Automated batch tool for making preview images of 3D models?

you can use youtube or others.

If your models are real-time then marmoset is a great option, you can set up a base lighting scene that suits your needs and have it consistent across all your models.

If you are rendering these in a 3D package then setup a studio with some cameras and use the built in batch render tools. Keep in mind if your models differ in size then you will need to double check your cameras in case its too far away, too large etc. Once your images are rendered then a software like Natron (which is free) is excellent for batching large amounts of rendered images, it can do file naming, consistency for background colors and lots of other pipeline stuff.

I don't believe there is an app that can automatically batch generate professional quality renders of your models from different angles.

As 3DCargo explained, about the best you can do is to create one or a few studio lighting or HDRI lighting setups, and then you'll have to drop your models into those setups, one-at-a-time. For many stand-alone rendering engines, such as Maxwell Render and Maverick Render, the engines do have relatively sophisticated automatic turntables that make renders at every so many turns of the model or turntable. Sometimes, you can specify that you want only every fifth or sixth rotation rendered. So, it is possible to position your model in the center, and then execute the turntable process, and then go away for coffee or a long nap. When the turntable process is complete, you'll have maybe 32 or 180 individual renders of your object from different angles - you can select five or six of these to use as promotional images. Throw the rest away.

However, while this process works well for single model products, or something with just a few objects (like a bowl of fruit), its not good for complex sets of objects. Also, some turntable products rotate the model, while others rotate the entire setup - including the lighting arrangement. Not generally what you want.

Another drawback is that promotional renders should include some closeups of detail in the model, as well as whole-body shots of the model. And there is just no good way to automate this kind of thing for many different kinds of models.

One helpful facility in a stand-alone rendering engine such as Maverick Render is that you can create a standard studio or HDRI lighting setup, and then also save out a series of "viewpoints" for that lighting setup. I use this process once in a while, when I have a series of buildings of the same style. I can create the lighting arrangement I want, establish the camera settings, put the first building model into the scene, and then create say, ... six or seven viewpoint settings. Once that's done, I can make renders for each viewpoint, replace the first building with the second, and then, click on a saved viewpoint andexecute the render. Rinse and repeat. I suspect that it might be possible to write a custom Phython script to load a named model, bring up a viewpoint, and execute a render, and then loop the process. But, I haven't explored Maverick enough to know if they have Phython classes for this kind of thing.

cool job

My batch hotkey is F9 in Max

But seriously, quote: "Automated batch tool for making preview images of 3D models?" --- WTF?

After much searching I found this tool that does exactly what I need.
https://blendermarket.com/products/image-batch-automation

Beyond that, since I already had gifs that were generated by the software I use to make my models with (Kenney Shape), I found the excellent program Shutter Encoder that would allow me to perform batch operations on multiple gif files at once to either split them, convert them to WebM format, convert them to mp4 H246 (youtube) and do a whole range on cool operations like slomo, interpolation - all with a few button presses.