All you need to know to start selling your 3D scanned works on CGTrader

Selling models on CGTrader is simple. All you need to do is create an account and upload your models. Customers buy 3D models and use them in their prototypes, art, visualizations or other projects, but, as a creator, you always keep full rights and ownership of the model. Here are some useful tips for those of you who want to sell scanned 3D assets.

How to prepare scanned assets?

We recommend you prepare 2-3 versions of scanned 3D models with different levels of detail in each version. This way, buyers will be able to use your models in a wider variety of projects, for example, lower-detailed versions of the model can be used in VR and games, while more detailed versions might be used in film production.

What makes a 3D scanned model sell well?

Our most popular categories for scanned 3D models are architecture, nature, plants, people, and animals. Of course, you should always consider whether objects you want to scan and sell are copyrighted, in the public domain, etc., or whether you have the right to photograph the object at all.

Toombstone sculpture of Holy Mary by Mantas-Talmantas

You should also have several similar objects, so buyers could use them as sets. Whenever you have many similar assets (scanned rocks, bricks, leaves, etc.), create an asset pack to sell these models in bulk. Buyers usually want several similar objects for their scenes or environments, so it really helps when you have a few additional objects of the same style.

In any case, you can always sell each asset separately.

What are buyers looking for in terms of subjects, sizes, poly counts, textures?

Most customers will likely use your models in very different lighting conditions (games, VR experiences), so your textures should contain as little lighting information as possible. Consider ‘de-lighting’ your assets before uploading them on CGTrader to avoid customer complaints.

Cutters by pbrscans

The second most important feature of your 3D asset is the number of faces and polygons. Large and computationally-heavy assets are unusable in games or VR experiences, and you should optimize your models by:

• Simplifying and decimating
• Re-topology
• Creating several versions (in terms of polycount and detail)
• Baking geometry into texture maps (normal map) to compensate for the simplification (especially if you want your model to be usable in VR/AR and games)

You can also consult members of our community in the forum to get some additional tips.

In terms of polycount, CGTrader’s search has a separate filter for the number of polygons, so you might want to edit versions of your model to fit these groupings: 5k, 10k, 50k, 100k, 250k. Do not forget to re-texture your models before exporting different versions. Upload every version of the model together with the main version and name them accordingly. Take care to note the differences of these versions in the model description.

Make sure your model is available in all popular and standard file formats. As a rule of thumb, you can export your model to:

• .obj and .fbx formats for VR/AR and games.
• .stl, .obj, and .dae for 3D printing.

Pricing

It is always a good idea to check the prices of similar models already available on our marketplace to guide your pricing decision. A couple of points to keep in mind:

• Consider the value your work brings to the buyer. Your model might save many hours that they’d have to spend making the model.
• Make sure you don’t underprice your model, because buyers might see it as a sign of poor quality.
• If you decide to ask for a significantly higher price than similar models, make sure you provide a detailed description and preview images that showcase what distinguishes your model from the rest. That could be a large selection of file formats, high quality textures, optimization for games or VR/AR, etc.
• Be sure to use insights on pricing from CGTrader Analytics.

Woman drinking wine by AXYZdesign

How many preview images are required?

Make sure you upload previews from all sides, including close-ups, so customers can make sure they are buying a high quality 3D asset. This helps you maintain a good reputation on the marketplace and spend less time solving avoidable issues and supporting your customers.