Part 1: Taking The Plunge Are you ready to sell your 3D and
graphic art creations? If you are, you will need to prepare
yourself for business on the internet by learning everything you
can about this new sales venue. Your products must be of the
highest quality and have great value to your clients, and you must
provide the best possible customer support. For any aspiring
professional, the MarketPlace at
Renderosity is an easy place to begin. There, you can be
assured of excellent assistance, wonderful promotion, and enormous
exposure to a world of potential customers. The hardest part may be
figuring out your market, or what you wish to sell. Try to fill a
niche--an unfulfilled need in the market. If you need ideas for
products, there is a great resource on the web called the
MarketPlace at Renderosity Wishing Well. It can be found on
Renderosity's Front Page. People who need special items cast their
ideas in here. It is also essential to comply with copyright laws
and regulations. Be certain to register your own work. For
derivative work in any form, you will need permission from the
original artist. If you are creating an enhancement for another
artist's work, obtain permission before creating the item. If you
are creating a model based on the geometry of another (such as
DAZ's Victoria or Michael), be sure understand what
restrictions apply and how the file must be prepared for
distribution so that you won't be breaking copyright laws. When
deciding to sell an item, ask yourself if you would buy it. Ask
other users of similar products if they would buy it. Then make
your decision. Becoming a vendor at Renderosity is a wonderful way
to begin marketing your work. When you visit Renderosity, you will
notice a Selling Products link in the side navigation bar of the
main page. It leads to a description of the MarketPlace and has
links to important information for new vendors. Near the top of
every MarketPlace page there is a Store Contact Forum link. Besides
being able to ask questions there, you will also find an e-mail to
store@renderosity.com.
The staff members at the MarketPlace are your key to the store.
They are extremely helpful and they'll be happy to set you up as a
Renderosity merchant. Each item must be carefully tested first.
Before you send the item to the store, you need to create a
preliminary version of your product for beta-testing. Now it is
time to zip it--zip it good! It is good practice to use zips
even if your product can only be used on a PC. Most items made for
Poser can be converted by Mac users by using MartinC's Poser
Maconverter. Whenever possible, try to have your product tested on
both a PC and Mac before submitting to the MarketPlace. If you use
an .exe file to distribute, Mac users will not be able to open it.
The structure of your zip file is very important.
Renderosity's MarketPlace requires full paths in distributed zip
files. This means that a user can unzip the file to one folder, and
all the files will find their designated homes automatically. There
is an excellent tutorial for this in the Store Contributors forum,
which you can join once you have become a Renderosity merchant. The
procedure is similar for most 3D applications. Poser library files
are very common, but among the most complex, so they make a good
example. If you are working with a different application, just
substitute the base folder of that program for the Poser Runtime
folder illustrated here. Create a mirror of the folders contained
under the main Poser folder. The Runtime folder is where Poser
stores library files. Create a separate Runtime folder on your hard
drive and copy just the files needed for your creation there. Use
the exact same folder paths relative to the Runtime folder when
creating your mirror folders. If you want your creation to be used
as a figure, you will need a Library folder with a Character
folder, and a specific category folder for your character file. You
need to add two extra files to your zip--a readme.txt and the
Renderosity store license agreement. The license agreement can be
found on the store upload page. A readme file should be plain text
so that anyone can view the file on any computer. It should explain
what the product is and contain a complete list of all included
files, where the files all need to go, any special usage
instructions, any necessary files or programs that are not included
in the zip, and how to contact you by e-mail. With a copy of all
your required files in their places, make a zip of the mirrored
Runtime folder and all its sub folders. YOUR
FINISHED ZIP FILE SHOULD LOOK SOMETHING LIKE THIS. You will
want to keep this mirror-folder setup until you have finished
testing your product. That way, when a change is made, you can just
replace the changed file and easily create a new zip for your beta
testers. Remember, these same techniques apply to Bryce or any
other 3D software; just the paths and file extensions are
different. You need to beta test your item! Of course the first
test will be carried out by you, but you need to let people who
have never seen the item use it and tell you about any problems
they may encounter. It's best to have both expert and novice users
test your product. The expert users will be able to recognize and
diagnose technical problems with the product; the novice users will
be able to tell you if the product is easily installed and used.
Note: if you fished the idea from the Wishing Well, you may want
to offer the person who had the idea a chance to beta test the
item. Listen to your beta testers! They are doing their
level best to help you produce a reliable, easy-to-use product.
Sometimes you will get feedback that hurts. Take it, fix it and
make the product the best it can be. (Your beta testers should
receive a free copy of the finished product as thanks for helping
you.) While your item is in beta test, start creating sample
renders and animations to showcase your product. You may even want
to tease the community by posting test renders and bragging about
your new creation in the Product Showcase Forum and Gallery. You
will also need to start working on the promotional images that will
be used in the store. ...to be continued in Issue 3... NEXT
ISSUE: PACKAGING AND MARKETING
About nerd
(Charles Taylor): Sometimes people don't like to call me Nerd,
but being a nerd has been very good to me. I've been writing
software programs since I was 15 years old when I wrote a knock off
of Pac-Man. I also became interested in computer graphics around
that time. The tech industry is the one industry that I can think
of besides show business where a 37 year old guy can have 22 years
experience doing something he loves. In 1999 I started Nerd3D, one
of the first private sites to sell Poser items. Recently, my site
turned over its half-millionth visitor. Sometimes called a
Renaissance man, I've just started designing farm equipment and am
completing my first project. I was born to engineer things. My
first construction project was a chair that I finished at the age
of four. My father's nickname was Tinker and he thought giving me
real tools instead of toy ones would result in my making real
things - he was right. My wife and I are in our eighth year as mom
and pop computer consultants. We do off site network
administration, VAR, and software development. I'm a big fan of the
late cartoon legend Chuck Jones. If I couldn't do what I'm doing
now, I'd want his career. Since Poser is being used more and more
on television and in the courtroom, I'm hoping to see it make it to
the big screen and would love to be involved with that kind of
development.
The Magazine Interact Forum's Back Room is the place to go for
editorials, magazine excerpts, discussions, and plenty of
surprises. Also, if you haven't done so yet, you can buy single
issues or the whole magazine collection in
our Marketplace. To find your way there, go to the Magazine
Interact Forum, and click on the link to the Back
Room at the top.
