The disclosure herein describes training a machine learning model to recognize a real-world object based on generated virtual scene variations associated with a model of the real-world object. A digitized three-dimensional (3D) model representing the real-world object is obtained and a virtual scene is built around the 3D model. A plurality of virtual scene variations is generated by varying one or more characteristics. Each virtual scene variation is generated to include a label identifying the 3D model in the virtual scene variation. A machine learning model may be trained based on the plurality of virtual scene variations. The use of generated digital assets to train the machine learning model greatly decreases the time and cost requirements of creating training assets and provides training quality benefits based on the quantity and quality of variations that may be generated, as well as the completeness of information included in each generated digital asset.