Low Poly 3D Models, VR And You: How To Ride The Wave In 2016

Have you ever wondered how your sales stack up to the rest of CGTrader? How is the low polygon industry doing? What information does CGTrader have at their fingertips? Fortunately for you, it's time for us to part the veil and impart some important data to you! If you read this snazzy infographic, you will learn about the liquidity of low poly models, model categories that are facing high demand or high supply, the best categories per rendered effort and more. Don't be left out as the market and the world moves forward! Read on, apply the knowledge and be the one of the people that will thrive in the VR future.

LIQUIDITY

Liquidity is the stat we get by dividing the number of sales by the number of models. With high liquidity comes the higher chance to sell. And Low Poly is the smallest category on CGTrader that commands the biggest sales: its liquidity is 4.9 times higher than that of CG models and 2.9 times higher than 3D print-ready models.

Low poly model liquidity has been constantly growing for the past year and had seen a significant increases in sales in the last six months.

VR

The growth of the virtual reality sector is the likely reason for increased low poly demand. According to the information from SuperData research, 71% of all VR headsets in 2016 will come from mobile VR (which has relatively low hardware capabilities). 76% of VR content will be in games - the traditional area of low poly consumption. And there will be more and more people playing them - we will see 55.8 million VR users in comparison to just 6.7 million in 2015.

Low polygon is extremely important to VR since it requires two images to be rendered at 90 FPS - on PC, that’s translates to 6 times the hardware requirements of regular games. With 71% of VR market expected to be on mobile VR, saving processing power via optimized models becomes even more important.

LIQUIDITY AND PRICE

Looking at liquidity by price category, the greatest interest in models priced $25-$39, likely bought by indie game developers. This is closely followed large studios buying models priced at $100 and more.

Conversion rates show a similar picture. $25-$39 range only contains 17% of models, but constitutes 24% of sales, showing a high demand in an underserved market. Similar trends can be seen in $10-$15 (16% of models, 20% of sales) and the 100$+ ranges (5% of models, 7% of sales).

LOW POLY CATEGORIES

If we break down our low polygon models by category, we can see that about half of all models come from several areas: character/ human and architectural have the biggest supply, closely followed by weapon/ military and animals.

Looking in categories by pricing and liquidity, we can see a somewhat different picture. Here, animals take the lead by liquidity, with an average price falling in the $25-$39 range. Three other leaders in liquidity - plant/ tree, space and vehicle - also share the pricing range. This indicates that there’s a good demand of their models! Meanwhile, weapons/ military has a very high average model price, but its liquidity isn’t that good, clearly demonstrating that pricing strategies should be rethought.

All in all, the best performers by liquidity are animals, space, plant/ tree and character/ human. Space is a category that is especially under-served, Meanwhile, the closely related categories of architectural interior, household and furniture are over-served low performers together usually high-priced aircraft category.

SELLING

We have data on practices that lead to sales, too! For example, having more models makes you easier to get noticed. Users who uploaded their 4th model increased their chance to sell 1.8 times and uploading the 10th model upped the probability 1.5 times.

Having more images can lead to higher sales, too. For example, models that have 6-9 pictures have a 1.76 higher chance of selling. This is a visual medium after all and the buyers appreciate the chance to check out the goods!

It’s also important to have your model uploaded in several different formats. Best selling models have been exported (and uploaded) in 4 to 7 formats. Having more than 7 formats isn’t that beneficial.

Model formats matter, too. .fbx is basically the industry standard format, so you must have that. It is also important to have your model in .max and .obj formats. These three are the most popular and important formats on our site - you can choose the rest freely!

Now you know all you need to know about the lively and vibrant low polygon market! Use this knowledge wisely and you too will become part of our bright VR future! Those games need your assets and they need them now!

Want to get more insights? Download our whitepaper with additional analysis and insights here.