Company Spotlight: CGTrader
Are you a 3D designer looking for a marketplace for your models? Or perhaps you are searching for a quality CG design for your project? If you have struggled in the past to showcase your work, or have never known where to go to find the design you need, that is all about to change. Thanks to CGTrader – the largest 3D model marketplace available right now.
What is CGTrader?
CGTrader is a marketplace, but not just any marketplace – it’s one of the largest 3D model marketplaces for computer graphics, virtual/augmented reality and gaming, all backed by a strong professional designer community. It’s the place to showcase your models, and interact with fellow designers.
Who uses CGTrader?
As a marketplace, CGTrader has a dual purpose – to buy and to sell. Therefore, the platform is used by vendors and customers alike, to match the best design to the right project.
On CGTrader, 3D artists, design studios and businesses share and sell their models. Enterprise and business customers can choose from a wide collection of high-quality 3D models that can be used in their projects, shortening project development time and saving resources.
Why use CGTrader?
CGTrader gives talented 3D designers the opportunity to get income from their 3D models, showcase their work, get valuable feedback from the community, learn from their peers and interact in a designer-friendly environment. The platform allows designers to directly communicate with their customers and earn the highest royalties in the market.
The benefit to both parties is that it streamlines the system. No need to do extensive web searches looking for the ideal model, or spend hours on marketing to sell your designs; instead CGTrader offers the perfect meeting place to partner up and share ideas.
What makes CGTrader special?
CGTrader prides itself on its’ community. All of the users are professionals within 3D and computer graphics fields, making CGTrader much more than just a shop. Instead, this is a space for communicating with fellow designers and customers, getting feedback and simply showcasing the art.
CGTrader is striving to be the most designer friendly marketplace open to everyone in the field, while enabling designers to learn, as well as become empowered to do business the way they want to.
What is hot to trot?
Growing in popularity includes low poly models, or, in other words – less detailed 3D models for real-time applications like games or virtual, augmented reality applications. The interest in VR and AR is becoming huge, as many big and small companies are investing heavily in developing content, so the need for 3D assets, (the key building element for that content), is growing.
The gaming industry is now also being reshaped as independent developers and smaller studios have more opportunities to join big established game companies. These smaller players are making use of stock models more, giving rise to a need for a deeper marketplace.
Getting started as a designer with CGTrader
To get started showcasing designs, designers need to upload their first models and get acquainted with the whole process, and what is required. From here, it’s relatively easy to get an indication of what matters and what is current when it comes to selling 3D models.
The next step would be to delve into the community forum and the blog for further insights and best practices, and then start following the available advice.
How designers promote themselves on CGTrader
Getting seen above the competition is crucial, and quality always does the trick. If a designer uploads high quality 3D models, both fellow community members and customers will start to notice the work. The size of portfolio is also important – the more models uploaded the higher the chance is of being spotted.
Other important aspects include actively engaging with the community, promoting work on other communication channels from social media to personal website; plus, investing time into presentation of the artwork. All these methods help to be noticed and bring great results.
Targeting strong buyer bases
Computer graphics is a very open and very global industry, where countries and languages are of less importance than in other fields. To target the best buyers, it’s crucial to think in terms of where the industries using 3D models are the most developed – for example, US and Western Europe are strong in this field.
Nevertheless, 3D is a visual medium in the end, so both visual and technical quality of 3D models will play the biggest role. A designer specializing in 3D animals for games would be offering a model suitable to creators in Australia, US or Russia – they are all looking for the same end result, wherever they are. For this example, it would make very little sense to shift to designing 3D chairs even if that is currently booming in China.
How a designer receives payments from CGTrader
CGTrader has several payments options, including Payoneer, which it is hoped will become the preferred option among CGTrader designers. The community has designers from more than 160 countries, so Payoneer promises to be a good fit. This integration will not only be welcomed by the community, save money for designers, but will also allow CGTrader to loosen some of our restrictions, and thus speed-up internal processes associated.
However, they also offer PayPal, WebMoney plus traditional bank transfers depending on the needs of the designers and services available in a particular country.
The future of this industry
With a number of interesting developments taking place in computer graphics and 3D, the industry has already moved from text to images as the most effective tool for communication and understanding the world. The next step in the sequence is 3D. Stakeholders are looking with interest to see where VR and AR will go; it’s expected that wide adoption of that technology would boost the whole 3D ecosystem.
The other big area that is certain to expand is e-commerce – as consumers look to increase their habit of online buying, it is likely they will no longer consider items that have no preview images. However, right now buyers are still lacking confidence in 3D inanimate objects, and will want to see objects from all sides when purchasing. 3D models can solve this.
The future of CGTrader
Currently CGTrader is one of the leading 3D model marketplaces globally, so it is expected that in a few years they will become the top choice for designers and customers alike. Other plans are to build an infrastructure that would ease the workflow for 3D designers, while continuing to build the community.
The future certainly looks rosy for both the 3D industry and for CGTrader – if you are a 3D designer now is the time to get involved!