Options for stock objects

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lwaxana
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by lwaxana »

https://sellfy.com/ looks like it could work as a searchable marketplace for any file type that handles the download process.
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strider2000
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by strider2000 »

I don't know if there's a more recent thread than this, but the lack of ability to get content is something I bemoan as well. When I first started with Anime Studio it seemed as if Content Paradise would be great, but I agree with the sentiments here, plus there's way too much noise (ie stuff I'm not interested in) and a little to explicit for my personal tastes.

I like the ideas here and hope that maybe we can see a resource marketplace. With the work I've seen on the forum I'm sure there's lot's of good content that could be available. In my mind I think of hobbyists like me. I don't have a ton of money, but I'm willing to contribute and share. I don't mind paying for content packs if they provide value and are reasonably priced. The Halloween content pack was well worth the money for me. I can even envision scripts as well as content. In the end I think most, if not all of us have a passion for creating and sharing. The content, scripts and tools just make that easier.

I've bookmarked some of the ideas here to check out. If people have tried them I'd love to hear their experiences.
Telemacus
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by Telemacus »

The envato market is an interesting alternative. It has millions of users and it's very easy to set up a new account and start selling your items.

http://3docean.net/category
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DK
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by DK »

Hi,
I have sold on Content Paradise for many years and believe there are a few reasons why not a lot of good content is being created for AS. When I first started selling a few years back CP was a clean and uncluttered market place and sales were quite good. After a while they started allowing people to sell pure rubbish on the site that was barely AS related like character image sequences that were generated in Poser and palmed off as AS content. These users basically spammed the site with their garbage and sales have been affected across the board. Add to this the hassle of creating it in the first place.

Not many people realize what's involved creating the AS assetts and uploading them to the site so
Here's a basic run down of how it works:

1. Create some good AS content.(About a day).
2. Create a cool cover image and include screenshots of the product. (an hour).
3. Write precise instructions. (30 mins-1hour).
4. Test and make sure the file is AS friendly over all versions. (30 mins).
5. Create a You tube demo and upload it. (30 mins-1hour).
6. Upload all the files to the site. (30 mins).
7.Write a description of the file for the site and set prices over all categories. (30 mins).
8.Create a user license. (30 mins).
9. Sit back and hope someone stumbles across it and buys it for $2.99.

I have done all this and not even sold one copy of a file.

D.K
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PRIMAL MORON
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by PRIMAL MORON »

Ok, I normally detest selling source files on sites like that, if they don't want new sellers, to heck with em, you don't need em.

What you really need in this situation is something structured and functional, they have made it so much easier and more convincing to make your own art than give it to other users.

So, i gave it some thought, and there are a few ideas you can try:

1. Sell your project on your own server/website: If you have your own place, it is much, much easier to adjust it as you see fit, this is great for custom extensions and eCommerce (selling files online.) The drawback here is you need to go into it with knowledge of building a website that meets at least two of these 3 conditions minimum- *Programming knowledge, **A structured plan of action, ***A good domain registar. (To Get the "Name" of the site in your name from and the extension.) I will prove most fruitful if you think it through, and don't give up on it, unless you are 110% certain a website of your own is right for you. (quitting is one of the biggest reasons websites fail.)

2. Form a group and work together: It's dangerous to go alone, so don't. Take some friends or artists along with an idea of a place where you can all get together and share files in a more structured and collaborative manner, places like Facebook, Twitter, and Deviantart are a few examples, but more personal ones like Dropbox, Skype, and Tumblr may prove useful if you come up with a theme or structured concept to sell and look out for each other, if you're going large scale, try the first 3, if you wanna start out smaller, try the last 3, mix and match as your needs grow. Make sure you get along with the others and stay organized, groups can fall apart if they are not kept alive or solidified well, know who you're working with, share ideas, and have fun, you might all learn from it.

3. Sell Independently as a freelancer: If all else fails, you just wanna sell your files, that might not be right for you to work in a group or even invest in a website, because people have a certain idea in mind, and yours doesn't fit the bill. Selling your services as a freelancer might be better. A freelancer is a person who offers to sell their services for a set price and make whatever the user wants, then the user pays them for that work. This is usually the least expensive method, because all you need to do is let people know what you sell, how much it will cost, what you will and will not do, and any other terms, and leave a place where interested people can pay you or leave responses. Thisis great if you just wanna get started asap, and allows a lot of flexibility, unlike the other two, this may even have other perks, such as selling your services to a company or getting a job in it (if needed.) Don't be shy, and don't be scared of people, just pass it along and always have a work ready to show so people get an idea of what you make. there is one downside to this, if something goes wrong, you're on your own, you might lose money or even get into trouble if you're not careful. But in the end, this is the quickest method, so it's good for starters, but make sure you practice and have something worth selling, first!

These are all the current ideas i have atm on how to sell files online, if anyone has any more, it would be good to share.

Cheers,
-Matt
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strider2000
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by strider2000 »

Good thoughts. I've never done any of that so it'll take me some time to digest. It's just too bad that there's currently not some place where we can all share our stuff.
obtusity
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by obtusity »

Regarding Matt's DeviantArt suggestion:

For a very small-scale example, see the Resources gallery and the Rigs and Set Ups gallery (some downloadable rigs, some screenshots of rigs) of the AnimeStudio-Welcome group here: http://animestudio-welcome.deviantart.com/gallery/

Drawback: Limited large-scale browsing/searching functionality.
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jezjones29
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by jezjones29 »

strider2000 wrote:Good thoughts. I've never done any of that so it'll take me some time to digest. It's just too bad that there's currently not some place where we can all share our stuff.
What do you mean by share? Here are a few places to share Anime Studio files...
  1. lostmarble.com/forum/
  2. animestudiotutor.com/shared_files
  3. animatorsforum.com
  4. Facebook: Anime Studio Pros
  5. Facebook: Anime Studio Pros - Beginners
  6. Facebook: Anime Studio
  7. Google+: Anime Studio Users
  8. Google+: Anime Studio Pro
    ..There are many more
As for selling items, if there is enough interest, I could open up my shop area to host your files for sale. I have two people interested at the moment.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by Greenlaw »

There's a service called PayLoadz which is an eCommerce service for downloadable goods. It looks like people have used it to sell 3D models, scripts, and other digital content. I've never used it myself but maybe it's worth a look.

G.
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strider2000
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by strider2000 »

It may just be me and it may be more about organization and knowing where things are, but to me the current state of content is pretty scattered. In an ideal world I envision a place you go and you could easily find whatever you need in terms of content. (That's what I initially thought Content Paradise would be).

By "Share" I guess I mean a mechanism where people could easily put stuff for free or for fee :) and it would be well organized. Organizationally, cartoon solutions http://www.cartoonsolutions.com/store/c ... c-290.html, is the closest I've found to what I have in my mind. The challenge there is that, as many people have pointed out ... they're nice looking characters, but _way_ too expensive for what you get, especially since they're not well designed for ASP.

I didn't realize AnimestudioTutor was your site. I like that a lot. It's very well organized for finding tutorials and "browsing for content" (ie finding a thing here or there to play with or learn about.) It may be a perfect foundation for the idea I'm thinking about. The current challenge for me, and again it may all be my limitation, is that if I wanted to get some content for an animation I'd want to have multiple characters, props and backgrounds that fit the same style. I just may not yet understand how to navigate your site properly, but it would be hard for me to find a cohesive set of characters, props and background that fit whatever style I'm looking for. I thought the halloween pack was great. Multiple characters with a setting. In other words, the quality and capability to animate out of the box was worth the price.

I don't think I really realized I could upload files there. I guess I thought of it less as a content location per se, and more as something someone (you) owned, had lots of links to tutorials and how too's and a few items for sale.

If you did make some tweaks to make it easier to find content (say perhaps to sort by author, theme, content type for example) and open up for others to post for fee or free, I can easily see how it could be a great alternative to Content Paradise and Cartoon Solutions (again, not saying they're bad, just saying they're not the best for me).

I love the idea of ratings. I'll definitely have to visit the site, especially the shared files section more.
Greenlaw wrote:There's a service called PayLoadz which is an eCommerce service for downloadable goods.
Thanks Greenlaw. I'll have to check that out.
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lwaxana
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by lwaxana »

From what I understand, Anime Studio's approach to pre-made rigs and stock objects is that they are examples that teach users how to create their own assets. But Anime Studio's standout feature, advanced rigging, is extremely well suited to separating asset creation from the animation process, like a 3D package. A pre-made character rigged in Anime Studio can meet the needs of a scene that it wasn't specifically designed for. But we're not taking advantage of that. Instead, we're asking every user to take on the task of visual design, vectorizing, rigging, directing, writing, storyboarding, animating, etc. Most people enjoy a few of these tasks, but not all of them.

As an example, consider the 11 second club. To my knowledge, no AS entry has ever won or even placed in the top 11, (please correct me if I'm wrong!). It has long irked me that the 3D entries had the advantage of pre-made character rigs with advanced acting capabilities. Those animators can spend the allotted month focusing on acting choices and directing. Meanwhile, if you work in AS, you're typically creating your own - limited - scene specific rigs because no suitable advanced rig is available.

People are out there making amazing Anime Studio rigs that are up to the task of nuanced acting, and yet there is no marketplace to make them available. If people who enjoy animating could get their hands on those rigs, the result would be higher quality examples of AS work. It makes no sense to me from a marketing standpoint that Content Paradise exists and it's not being leveraged. Why???
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strider2000
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by strider2000 »

Some really good points lwaxana.
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synthsin75
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by synthsin75 »

Content Paradise seems to work better than it use to. You can select, say, 2D characters and Anime Studio, and you don't get overwhelmed with 3D crap.

The problem is that you have to buy sight unseen. Unless there is a demo video, you don't know how well something is rigged, and even then you don't know if its construction is too point heavy for point animation. A user review and ratings system would go a long way to address that.

And to increase traffic, hosting free files would be nice too. These could be reviewed too, and very high rating ones might prompt the user to move it to a paid product. And some criteria could be set for poorly performing freebies to be discontinued (so the free category doesn't get overwhelmed with crap).
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DK
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by DK »

lwaxana,
Please try to read between the lines here. Just looking at some of the posts about other sites similar to CP I believe is where your answer lies as to why CP is not being leveraged. If I ran a company like SM I would want to be at the forefront of technology and position my company where the masses are feeding.

Cheers
D.K
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lwaxana
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Re: Options for stock objects

Post by lwaxana »

But for Smith Micro, a digital marketplace isn't just a separate revenue stream. It incentivizes content creators to push the limits of what the software can do and for people seeking content, it extends the functionality of the software. As for the other marketplaces, there is less incentive to put in 100+ hours of work on some mind blowing rig if you know from the beginning that there is an official marketplace, but you are not allowed to post there.

Synth- I really like the videos. A rating system could help with filtering by highest rated. I think there are already a few free downloads on CP.
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