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The presentation of your files is important and rushing it is a very bad idea. Even if your item is the best ever in the history of the making, if your presentation is lacking, chances are that no potential buyer will ever even take a closer look. Bad presentation hurts your sales as well as the reputation of the marketplace which in turn impacts on everyones sales. It may result in your item being rejected in some cases. Be objective and compare your presentation with other items on the site. Potential buyers will not know how much work went into your model or how well it is constructed if your presentation does not communicate it at first glance. Now this all may sound harsh but it really is well meant advice that will benefit everyone if taken to heart, so lets get started on some good presentation! :)

1. Thumbnails

   Thumbnails, although the smallest, are possibly the most important part of your presentation and may determine the fate of your item. When a buyer scans through the site it is a matter of a split second in which the essence of your item must be communicated. Having said that there are a number of guidelines that can help you make your thumbnail stand out and look professional. Rules of thumb so to say :).

   • You do not need to show the whole item on the thumbnail. Most of the time the thumbnail will be too small for it and when you scale your item down to fit into an 80×80 pixel square, you will most likely not be able to recognize anything. Pick an attractive detail that communicates what your item is and showcase it.
   • Don’t use strong background colors because they take the focus off what you want to show. They make your thumbnail look like a clumsy and unprofessional attempt to grab attention, not to mention that it just looks ugly.  Go with subtle tones and hues that complement your item instead of competing with it.
   • If you are using Photoshop, sharpen images after scaling. I know this is a bad practice when it comes to print media, but when it comes to images displayed on a screen you will suddenly see details that you did not know were there.
   • Put effort into your renderings. A professional looking rendering of your item, be it a texture, model or material, will drastically increase a buyers confidence in the quality of your files and reflect your level of expertise.
   • Be consistent where ever possible. Once you found a good mode of presentation, try to stick with it for all your items. It makes for a professional looking portfolio and establishes you as a brand. It also helps when your items are easily recognizable as being your items anywhere on the site.

2. Main Preview Image

   Once your thumbnail has done its magic on a user and drawn him/her in to take a closer look at your item, your preview image must seal the deal for your. Even when someone is not really looking to buy an items, it may still earn you a bookmark, verbal promotion or even land you a job. What you show on your preview image is essentially up to your own judgement. Keep in mind also that these images will popp up on google as thumbnails so don’t make them too long or complicated because they won’t generate any clicks then.

   • For 3D models there are 2 pieces of information that should always be on there: The best quality rendering of your model that you can achieve and a clay rendering with wireframe. I can never stress enough how important wireframe renderings are!
   • For Textures it is important to show a rendering of the texture in context as well as a section of the actual resolution and the map types included. Simply displaying an image of a texture won’t get you noticed.
   • Materials: Something has yet to be written here
   • Concepts: Something has yet to be written here
   • 3DPrint: Something has yet to be written here
   • Animation: Something has yet to be written here

3. Additional Preview Images

   If you have a complex item or multiple items in your download package, then the Additional preview images will come in handy. Their purpose is to let you show more in depth information on your item like detail shots, various angles, different contexts, included content and features and so on.

4. 360 Preview

   Sometimes a nice 360 turnaround can communicate a lot of information about your model and give the viewer a better sense of its overall proportions and volume. It is mostly for high poly objects that can not be viewed in real time via a browser viewer. As with all the preview material, be sure to put effort into your renderings to get the best out of this feature. Remember to name your images in sequence (the easiest is to name them 01.jpg – 24.jpg as this ensures you have exactly 24 frames). To achieve a smooth loop, frame 01 and frame 25 must be identical and NOT frame 01 and frame 24 (even though frame 25 will not be in the upload zip)! Another thing to pay attention to are the animation curves. To get a constant animation speed in your 360 rotation, your animation curve should look like example A. If your curve looks like example B, your animation will speed up in the beginning and slow down towards the end of the loop. 

5. Unity Preview

   Something about this has yet to be written!

6. Video Preview

   Video Previews must not be shorter then 3o frames, else the player will not work. It is a good idea to showcase your animation from multiple angles, a couple of loops at a time, so they can be viewed without the interruption of the player restarting the video after every loop. Showcase your animations directly on the biped rather then a rigged character as that may be distracting.

7. Item description

   Give your items a good description. Remember that the item description field is used by search engines like google! Putting plenty of related keywords there is like free advertising for your item. While it is not allowed to just list keywords in your item description, you can be clever about building them into your text.  It is a good idea to have at least 2 small paragraphs of text with plenty of keywords in there.

8. Polycount

   This is important information! If we had a way to do so, poly count would be made mandatory on 3DOcean. Alas at the moment all I can do is to keep reminding everyone to please do add your poly count to your items as buyers will be looking for this information and it will be important for an upcoming sorting feature.

9. Tags

   Take a minute to think about what sort of keywords people looking for an item like yours would enter into the search and use them as tag words. Not utilizing this feature will make your file that much harder to find.

Quality Standards

Here is a general definition of criteria that will get your items approved or that might get them rejected if not fulfilled.

1. 3D Models

   • Do NOT triangulate your model unnecessarily. The best topology is useless when you triangulate your model. Also pay close attention to your export settings. A lot of exported .obj and .fbx file formats that are included in download packages arrive in the cue triangulated. The only time one would triangulate a model is if it was a rigged low poly game model.
   • Always double check your exported files by reimporting them to see if everything worked as it should have.
   • Align your object along a straight axis and make sure it is sitting on the 0,0,0 coordinates of your workspace. This makes you models much easier to rig and work with.
   • Make effective use of your geometry and make sure it is clean. Inform yourself about good modeling practices and what good topology is.
   • Name your scene and all object in it in a coherent way.
   • Always include a wireframe rendering in your preview material.
   • Put effort into your item presentation
   • Include all textures used on your model or at least point to where they can be found if you do not have the rights to them.

2. Animation Data

   • TBA. Something has yet to be written about animations here.

3. CG Textures

   • Make textures tile able where ever possible. Use the offset filter in Photoshop to check for texture seams. When creating tile able textures like ground dirt, one should avoid obvious features (like a big stone with grass on it) because it will create an obvious pattern on large areas. This applies to all textures meant for large areas.
   • Include at least one non destructive file format in your download package. (bitmap, raw, png, tiff, tga, gif, psd)
   • All texture sides must be to the powers of 2. This is important because textures that are not to the power of 2 will have seams in game engines that generate mip maps. Having all texture sides to the power of 2 does not mean they have to be square! They could also be 1024 x 2048 pixel or 512 x 4096 pixel and the texture sides would still be to the power of 2. It makes it easier to scale uvs when applying textures to objects (because you can scale them by 200%, 50%, 25%, … along the x or y axis and this eliminates texture stretching. If a texture is not square, it will automatically be stretched by default when you apply it to an object, so having square textures is preferable because it will save an extra work step later on.
   • Put effort into your presentation. As mentioned above, it is important to show a rendering of the texture in context as well as a section of the actual resolution and the map types included. Simply displaying an image of a texture won’t get you noticed.

4. Materials And Shaders

   • Something has yet to be written about materials and shaders here.

5. 2D Concepts

   • Something has yet to be written about concepts here.

6. 3D Print

   • A lot has still to be written about 3D Print here.

3DOcean is an Envato Marketplace. At 3DOcean you can buy and sell royalty-free 3D models, textures, concepts, and materials and shaders. Items are priced on the complexity, quality and use of the file.

Finding and Buying Items

There are lots of ways to find the items you want:

1. Category List – Browse ActiveDen’s extensive category list here.
2. Keyword Search– Access the search field on the top right of any page.
3. Popular Files – Check out our weekly summary of the most popular items
4. Collections – Browse our user-compiled item collections on a variety of themes
5. Featured Files – Hand-picked by our site editors each week
6. Top Authors – Look through the portfolios of our top authors

You can buy items immediately via Paypal or use prepaid deposits.

Join Envato, Join a Community

3DOcean is more than a place to find great 3D Models, it’s a community! You can hear from authors, ask questions in the forums, and comment on items. Contact fellow users and view their portfolios.

At 3DOcean we like to say that it is this community who really owns the site and we do our best to make sure they get the most out of it by providing not just great selling facilities but also interactivity, news, competitions and whatever else we can dream up!

Plus 3DOcean is just one of a whole set of Envato Marketplaces. Signing up to an account on 3DOcean will let you access the whole network.

Item Support and FAQs

All items for sale on 3DOcean are reviewed to ensure they are in good working order and are easy to use. Further item support such as alterations is at the discretion of each author. You’ll find that the 3DOcean forum is also a good place to find help for using or modifying items.

Want to Sell Items or Join the Referral Program?

Envato Marketplace authors make 50%-70% on every item sold. Refer new users and receive a 30% commission from their first Cash Deposit! Go here to get started:

• Authoring Basics
• How the Referral Program Works

Site Support

There is a lot of useful information in the marketplace wiki. If you need any help or any answers that aren’t in the wiki, support is open from 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, Australian Eastern Standard time. Support tickets will be answered within two working days.