The creative platform now has a store.
The platform that has allowed users to publish, share, and discover 3D content on the web for almost 6 years is now helping their community of over 1.3 million members monetize their work.
Launched in beta Wednesday, Sketchfab Store offers up to 4,000 models to purchase and download. While not all 2 million models hosted on Sketchfab are available for sale at launch, there is a diverse library of everything from low poly assets to animated rigs to choose from, giving you a good feel of navigating the store. Sketchfab is currently handpicking and reviewing sellers for now.
A quick search of the “Characters & Creatures” category shows that models can range anywhere from under $10 to upwards of $400 for highly detailed rigged models. Sketchfab’s 3D viewer and model inspector not only lets you see the 3D models but also explore their anatomy. As a buyer, this allows you to better understand how the model is made and whether it’s an asset that measures up to your own standards.
For sellers, Sketchfab already processes much of the technical information about the file itself (polygon count, number of textures, material types, etc.), which means if you already have models on Sketchfab, selling on the store can be as simple as a couple clicks.
Sketchfab’s discovery platform for VR and AR content is not without competition. While we have used Sketchfab quite often in the past, Google’s launch of Poly has also made creation and development just as simple for us.
Features that can be useful for shoppers like a rating system, a shopping cart, and even a download API would be nice to have and are currently in the works according to Sketchfab. But for now, we’re happy to see an additional way for artists to monetize their work and for creators to have more access to assets during development.
