We’re proud to announce that the Unity team just added support for Sketchfab embeds to their immensely popular Unity Asset Store! Next to the traditional turntable animations, sellers can now add a new level of interaction with their models, creating a far more convincing display of their merchandise.

Leviathan by daelon on Sketchfab

Adding an embed is each, click ‘Insert Audio/Video’ (I know, right ;-), select Sketchfab and paste in the URL of your model. Done!

Here are some awesome assets that have already added a Sketchfab view:

• SeaTitan Leviathan
• Medieval Tent Big and Small
• Armored Golem
• Droid Girl
• Simple Sword

We’ll be promoting the coolest Asset Store embeds, so be sure to leave a link to your work in the comments below.

- Bart

The big news of this week was our new download feature, and we were featured in some renowned publications! It’s hard to pick a ‘winner’ in this case as they were all awesome, but as our downloads are all under a Creative Commons license, we selected the publication on CreativeCommons.org as our featured embed.

Other Download related embeds:

• TechCrunch: Sketchfab Becomes A 3D Printing Repository By Letting You Download 3D Objects (well, we’re hoping to be more than that ;-)
• 3D Printing Industry

More cool embeds:

• Phil Nolan’s beautiful Kneeling Woman statue on 3D Printing Industry.
• Daelon’sArmored Golem on the Unity Asset Store.
• Prizm, the clever audio streamer on Kickstarter.
• Exphrasis' Needle5 SciFi plane on ArtStation.
• HMSS Imperialise 2 by BillyGoat, on Kickstarter.

Did you know you can embed your sketchfab models anywhere on the web? Just click on the ‘Share’ button and copy the HTML code. Here is a list of platforms we’ve teamed up with, where it’s even easier! 

See you next week!

- Bart

Which models got the stamp of approval from the Sketchfab community this month? Check out our update of the most popular work!

Remember: If you’d like to earn a place in this overview next month, then be sure to share your work everywhere you can and earn those likes!

#10 - Blue [Nueva Grieta del Invocador] by catacroquer

#9 - HMSS Imperialise 2 by BillyGoat

#8 - Qute fish by Fox3D

#7 - Stylized Fantasy World by TocoGamescom

#6 - Traditional Jack-O-Lantern by Jakob Baldwin

#5: MV2 by sergiu.ikarus

#4: Raceship 2014 by Mestaty

#3: Pumpkin Fingerbiter by n.metivier

#2: Centaur by patrix

#1: Chibi Gear Solid by glenatron

- Bart

Thank you for participating in #3DST 23 - Jack-o’-Lantern, and Congrats to antoniorafanelli, winner with jack o lantern!

We’re moving away from monsters and other scary things now - Antonio picked ‘My old PC’ as our next topic. I’m sure you have one laying around in your place, so go dig it up and get it scanned!

You can follow the submission thread here (as soon as entries have been submitted).

Old Pc wip by Victor Estivador on Sketchfab

Prize: get your work featured, and win a $25 Shapeways 3D printing coupon. A unique chance to get your scan printed.

Rules:

Note: we now have excellent support for tags on the site, so please use these instead of adding the contest tag to the title of your entry!

• Make a 3D scan of a your old PC by Thursday, November 6th (find great 3D scanning apps here).
  
• Share it on your own Sketchfab account and add the #3DST24 tag.
• The author of the model getting the most likes by the following Sunday is featured, wins a $25 Shapeways 3D printing coupon and gets to chose the following theme.
• Multiple entries are ok.
• Entries scanned before theme announcement are not ok.
• To know everything about #3DST including great tutorials, check this blog post.

Good luck!

- Bart

Hoa Hakananai’a by britishmuseum on Sketchfab

We just reached a new milestone, a download option is now available on Sketchfab! It means that now you can either use Sketchfab for display only or for display and download.

You might want to download a model to 3D print it. You’ll find files on Sketchfab that are ready for 3D printing, but if they’re not, you may have to fix them up first. After all, your models will have to be physically ‘possible’ if you want to print them (and yeah, visualization artists can cheat, but 3D printing designers can’t!).

Hoa Hakananai’a by britishmuseum on Sketchfab

Quick 3D printable check-list (all of these depend on the printer that you’re going to use, so check with the owner): 

• What kind of file format does your printer require? Most printers will accept STL files, although commercial services can work with a wider range of file types (like for full color printing, see below). Most 3D applications can export to STL so it’s easy to convert a model that you downloaded from Sketchfab.

• Is your model ‘watertight’? 3D printers get confused if there’s a ‘leak’ in your model - essentially this would reduce the model to a two-dimensional shell. So take care to close your model! Of course you can still have models with holes in them, like a donut, but make sure that the surface is continuous and closed.

• Related to the concept of watertight is ‘manifold’. This is a mathematical term describing object surfaces. Basically, it says that the surface can exist in reality - the main requirement being that each edge of your model neighbours to exactly 2 faces. Most 3D apps have support for testing manifoldness. If yours doesn’t, try the free Meshlab software. For more information on this topic, see this excellent tutorial on Shapeways.

• Does your model conform to your printer’s minimum wall thickness (the thinnest part it can print), and will it fit? Each printer has it’s own minimum and maximum model sizes, be sure to check them!

• Overhang - this is a bit more technical, but especially FDM printers (like Ultimakers or Makerbots) have a limit to the ‘angle’ of some of the faces. A large overhang will require adding support material. Again, check with your printer or its owner if he can add support.

• Full color support. Most printers these days print in one material. Only a few can handle full color like the ZCorp or Visijet printers. For ‘monochrome’ printers, an STL file is fine. For full color, you’ll usually have to provide a VRML file with the required UV maps.

• Polygon threshold, the maximum number of polygon the printer can handle. Keep the printer resolution in mind when deciding on the polygon count. Details that are below the resolution won’t get printed anyway, so don’t bother sending them to your printer. A good rule of thumb is not to go over 1 million triangles. You can use mesh decimation software to remove unneeded details while still preserving your model’s shape. Again, MeshLab is your friend if your own 3D software doesn’t already offer this. Here’s a great video tutorial talking you through it.

• Price. 3D printed models can get expensive fast! Most printing services base their price on the printed volume. As such, increasing your model’s size by a factor of two will result in an 8x increase in price (remember, volume is the cube of the size). The good news is that you often only need a small size adjustment to make your print match your budget.

HTC One M8 printable case by HTC on Sketchfab

We partnered with 3D Hubs to power click to print links on selected models (for a start). The HTC case model embedded above can be printed via the 3D Hubs decentralized network of printers (there’s probably one near your location!), see the result of the print right here: 

Now that you are familiar with the basic concepts linked to 3D printing, you might want to dive in a little more on specific topics. Here are some useful links and tutorials to explore some concepts and techniques more in depth:

• Photoshop allows you to prepare files for 3D printing, here’s a guide.
• How to guide to 3D model character models for 3D printing this Shapeways tutorial is a good resource to start with.
• How to adjust your animation/characters for 3d printing, a video tutorial.
  
• If you want to print in color, check out the FCS material guideline here, and here’s the official checklist to go through before you’re about to 3D print with Shapeways.
• Preparing Blender files for 3D printing, a video tutorial by CG Cookie.
• 3D printing on the Form 1 + Formlabs, a tutorial on CG Cookie.
• Free software for file conversion: http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
• Free tool to test if your model is 3D printable: http://www.willit3dprint.com/
• Autodesk MeshMixer is a great tool for creating mashups of existing models. And it’s free!

That’s it you’re ready to enter the wonderful world of 3D printing, have fun along the way and don’t forget to share photos of your prints with us! You can send them to hello@sketchfab.com, or simply tweet them with the hashtag #Sketchfabulous

Test print of this Arsinoitherium’ skull https://t.co/bNciEsybkK#3dprintingpic.twitter.com/F5YUMF3L7P

— Jerome Maurey (@jeromemaurey)

October 31, 2014

The Unity community has once again created some awesome game art for their monthly Art Challenge. October’s theme was ‘the Island' and that certainly sparked the imagination. Here are the winners! (Read on for this month's theme).

First place: Turtle Island, by Nomad Kind

Turtle Island - Island Contest by NomadKing on Sketchfab

Second place: Flying Island, by constructidecepticon

Flying Island 001 by constructidecepticon on Sketchfab

Third place: Freshwater Island, by happs

freshwater_island by happs on Sketchfab

You can see the full list of entries for this contest in the Unity Community Art Challenge tag gallery.

Unity Community Art Challenge - November 2014 - The Magical Crate

This months Challenge is themed “The Magical Crate”. Most every game has crates! They are so essential yet often overlooked! Craft a “Crate” that makes a difference! Let your creativity flow and show us your version of a “Magical Crate”. Have a look at the various RPG games for inspiration and reference and then use your imagination to surprise us!

As a result we want to see a beautiful small Diorama/Turntable of your “Magical Crate”!

See the full announcement over at the Unity forum. Enjoy!

- Bart

3D Model Marketplace 3DSquirrel now offers a Sketchfab viewer to their authors, allowing them to better showcase their work. Publishing your work is easy: just click the Sketchfab button and enter the URL of your model. Here’s an overview.

At the same time, we’ve teamed up with 3DSquirrel for an awesome robot modeling contest where you can win a 12 months Sketchfab Pro membership and an interview on 3D Artist and more. Check out the full contest details over on 3DSquirrel.

Mini Robot Crab by 3D Squirrel on Sketchfab

- Bart

Lince Works is developing Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows, a dark 3rd person stealth game about an undead warrior with the power to control the shadows. The Steam Early Access release is planned for early 2015.

Path of Shadows main character by esanchca on Sketchfab

Hi team how are you ? Can you tell me what’s the story behind Twin Souls ? How did this game come to life ?

We’re glad to be on Sketchfab today. So actually we wanted to create a game that combined the essence of stealth classics like Tenchu with the modern approach of recent gems like Mark of the Ninja and Dishonored.

Some of us at Lince Works have always been big fans of the stealth genre and spent countless hours playing Tenchu, Metal Gear Solid or even Syphon Filter on the PS1. Anime series, samurai movies and literature also contributed to our interest on creating Twin Souls.

Specifically, the idea behind Twin Souls and the use of shadow manipulation was born in 2013 when some of the Lince Works developers co-created Path of Shadows, a student game made for learning purposes and portfolio. We liked so much the idea of a badass Shadow Assassin that in 2014 we started the development of Twin Souls: The Path of Shadows as its spiritual successor, improving and working on the original game concept.

Would you say that the world of indie games is a challenging one ?

The journey to release a game being an indie studio is quite long. Making a game being a big studio is already a huge challenge, but being indie adds even more complexity, as indie developers usually have to wear different ‘hats’ at the same time. You’ll usually find 3D programmers who act as team leads, or concept artists who do level design. With lower funds and resources, indie developers must resort to more innovative strategies both technically (unusual aesthetics, pixel art or low-poly models) and in terms of marketing (alpha/beta sales, early access, development logs).

You made a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, how does it help you through this adventure?

The Kickstarter campaign for Twin Souls ended unsuccessful at $31,000 of $70,000; but we learned a lot from our mistakes (we even wrote a post-mortem article). Basically, videogames are usually designed, developed and released without any kind of external input or feedback. With the rise of indies and crowdfunding, the player (the final consumer) has become a fundamental part of the development cycle. The Twin Souls Kickstarter campaign was a defining point on the project development and made us rethink (and redesign) every pillar of the game, from game mechanics to art.

Some Sketchfab community members study video game development at school, what would you recommend to them ?

My summary would be: Get some game development formation if you can (or learn by yourself from online resources) and, the important part, make games. Just create the smallest game possible like a Flappy Bird clone for example, and keep creating bigger games as you become better. Team up with other people with similar interests and participate in game jams to meet other game developers and gain experience.

Path of Shadows Goddess by esanchca on Sketchfab

Thank you for your time guys, and all the best with Twin Souls !

- Jc

We’re seeing more and more teachers and students using Sketchfab in their classes. Last week, I saw Heather Knudson’s super charming Mr. Mouse (see below), which got me curious about her projects.

Could you introduce yourself to our readers: Who are you and where are you from?

My name is Heather Knudson. I am currently part of the graduating class of December 2014 at The Digital Animation and Visual Effects (‘DAVE’) School in Orlando Florida and am originally from Gilbertsville Pennsylvania.

Three Headed Monster Dog by heatherknudson on Sketchfab

Can you tell us about what aspects of 3D you specialize in?

Being so new to the 3D world, I would not say that I specialize in anything quite yet, but I have taken a liking to hand painted low poly models and hope to pursue that more.

How did you first get started? What was that ‘I want to do this’ moment?

I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil, and started taking my art more seriously in high school. I found The DAVE School and decided to give it a try. My moment was about a week into the curriculum when I finished my first project. I loved the feel of 3D and enjoyed what I was doing.

Torchlight Armor 2 by heatherknudson on Sketchfab

Do you have any academic training or are you self-taught?

I taught myself how to draw and paint, then through school was able to apply it to 3D. The guidance of my teachers has really helped me improve and refine some skills. But there is still so much more to learn, especially in a field like this that is constantly growing.

Tell us a little bit more about your workflow/process?

The first thing I like to do when getting a new character is to draw out orthos of the body. I think this helps me to visualize what it is going to look like in 3D and clear up any tricky spots. After that I build it in 3DS Max, UV it, and take it into 3D Coat. I like to do a base coloring with rough shadows. If I find something I don’t like or want to refine more I’ll go back to Max and fix it up. I sort of flip back and forth until I’m happy with the model then just paint the rest of the time.

What project(s) are you working on right now?

The final block of school is a group project with my classmates where we make a game. We are working on a very cool IP but I cannot say much about it yet. But I have enjoyed getting to work with them to make lovely art.

Mr. Mouse by heatherknudson on Sketchfab

Can you talk a little bit in detail about your favorite model you currently have posted on Sketchfab?

My favorite model of mine would have to be Mr. Mouse. It was the first project where I got to choose what I wanted to make, and I felt like I got to incorporate my own flare on a fantastic concept. I had a lot of enjoyment painting him and am very proud of the result.

What would be your personal advice to someone getting started in 3D?

I think the most important thing to remember is to not get discouraged with a 3D program when starting. I had a tough time learning how to work the programs at first, it took me a good 6 months of modeling courses until I felt comfortable with it.

What are your thoughts on 3D printing, Are/Do you plan to work with it?

I really like the idea and application of 3D printing and actually just printed my Mouse! It can be used for so much more than characters, and I have seen people around my school use the printers here to make holders for objects, parts for a motorcycle, and even for cosplay!

How did you come across Sketchfab and how does it helped with your project(s)?

A teacher told me about Sketchfab, I was amazed with the way it can show 3D Models and the vastness of its use. I personally use it to show my family what I am doing, as well as posting on Polycount. I think critiques from a distance become a lot more in depth when someone can see your model, its wire-frame, and get into all the nooks and crannies with ease. I also enjoy looking at other people’s work here, and seeing how they went about making a model. I’ve learned a lot looking for tricks people use to make fantastic models.

What inspires you?

Everything! I like looking at other art, photos, and even listening to music to get inspiration for a piece. I love doing this, it’s my passion and in a way I feel like when I finish a model, its part of me. It makes me want to create even more!

Thanks Heather!

You can see more of Heather’s work on her personal website, www.heatherbea.com.

- Bart

Okay so this one caught us a little off-guard: Wargaming.net's M4 Sherman “Fury” tank model jumped from zero to 624,000 views in just three weeks, making it the most viewed model on Sketchfab ever!

They have the full weight of an awesome gaming community behind them. What are your tricks for making your models popular on Sketchfab?

M4 Sherman “Fury” by Wargaming.net on Sketchfab

- Bart

Oh, our week was just (Sketch)fabulous! SO many awesome embeds were driving tons or art views.. Here’s the list of our team’s favorites this week.

Enjoy, and congrats to all the featured artists!

PS: if you’d like to be featured here next week, send a link to your embed to bart@sketchfab.com, and tell me why it’s awesome!

Featured embed

Kotaku: I Never Knew Metal Gear Solid Could Be So… Cute

Kotaku writes:

This interactive chibi-fied diorama of Metal Gear Solid 1 was put together by Glenatron, and it’s full of nice little touches. It nails the basic style of MGS 1 while also making everyone look like adorable gnome children with debilitating smoking habits. It’s pretty great.

It’s an awesome scene to explore, go have a look!

Other great embeds

The other embed that made our day this week were:

• Fastcompany: 3-D Printing The Museum Store
• It’s Art Magazine: Sketchfab Real Time 3d Models Selection #4
• XWired Games: Turtle Power!
• Behance: Enemy
• Le Journal du Geek: Test : Motorola Moto 360

Did you know you can embed your sketchfab models anywhere on the web? Just click on the ‘Share’ button and copy the HTML code. Here is a list of platforms we’ve teamed up with, where it’s even easier!

See you next week!

- Bart

If you’re looking to build an audience here on Sketchfab, gathering followers is a key strategy. The British Museum just smashed all our records by gathering over 180 followers in just two weeks! Of course they have the advantage of, well, being the British Museum. They were also a big part of our communications of the new Download option. Still, it’s a good example of how publishing awesome content on Sketchfab will help you get in touch with your fans!

Are you trying to gain more views for your models? Keep your eyes on this blog as we’ll soon be launching a series on how to become a Sketchfab rockstar!

- Bart

Thank you for participating in #3DST 24 - My old PC, and congrats once more to antoniorafanelli, winner with 1984 - Olivetti M24!

Our new topic is close to your home or office: take a look around and decide, which is your favorite chair? Scan it and tell us why for our next round!

You can follow the submission thread here (as soon as entries have been submitted).

Creus Armchair by Kirill Viktorov on Sketchfab

Prize: get your work featured, and win a $25 Shapeways 3D printing coupon. A unique chance to get your scan printed.

Rules:

Note: we now have excellent support for tags on the site, so please use these instead of adding the contest tag to the title of your entry!

• Make a 3D scan of a your favorite chair by Thursday, November 13th (find great 3D scanning apps here).
  
• Share it on your own Sketchfab account and add the 3DST25 tag.
• The author of the model getting the most likes by the following Sunday is featured, wins a $25 Shapeways 3D printing coupon and gets to chose the following theme.
• Multiple entries are ok.
• Entries scanned before theme announcement are not ok.
• To know everything about #3DST including great tutorials, check this blog post.

Good luck!

- Bart

Today we meet the team developing Excubitor, an intense Sci-Fi action game where the players takes control of a space fighter and must battle hordes of enemies throughout different worlds.

# Hey guys ! What’s going on in Tesseract Interactive right now ? What is your latest news ?

The latest news is that we have finally completed our first chapter of the game and went on Steam Greenlight. We are on our way to the top 100 games on Greenlight and we appreciate any support on the game by voting for Excubitor to be on the Steam marketplace.

# Excubitor is your first game, how challenging is the development ?

We have been developing Excubitor for almost 2 years now and there is still a lot to do. Many times during the development we scrapped the project and started all over again. It’s a great learning experience. I think it’s safe to say now that we are satisfied with the current visual style of the game as well as the gameplay mechanics.

# What’s next on your agenda today ?

Right now we are looking for some investors or publishers that want to work with us on Excubitor. We believe that if we get green light on Steam it will be more likely to lure investors or even publishers to back up our game and to continue the development. Right now we want to make a small marketing campaign in order to raise the popularity of Excubitor and get more players to vote for our game.

# How has been built Excubitor ? What tools have you been using so far ?

We started developing Excubitor on the Microsoft XNA framework but later we decided to port it to Unity since it’s a great engine for starters in game development. Also there is the asset store where we can purchase assets and helpful plugins for relatively small price and spare us the time to make them ourselves, which is a great way to speed up the development. As for the art department we use software like Autodesk Maya, Photoshop and some other.

# Your working environment doesn’t look like those we are used to see, can you tell us a little bit more ?

We are working in an apartment owned by one of our team members, so the working environment is pretty relaxed. We don’t have strict working hours and there are no horrible bosses. Working in an indie game studio with people you know or share the same passion is as fun as it gets.

# Is everybody fit to start developing video games ?

You know, if I could travel a few years back I would definitely reconsider and change some aspects of how our project came to being. Everybody has great ideas about games they want to create. However executing that idea may prove very difficult, especially if it’s your first time creating a game. Don’t think that if you are familiarized with a game engine and a 3D software or Photoshop that you can create AAA games. The road to creating great games is difficult one and in order to be successful, first you have to make few mistakes. The best way, in my opinion, for someone who wants to start video game development is to create some simple games at first, just to get some experience and then move on to more complex games.

# We know you are familiar with Sketchfab latest features such as the Download option. Do you think it will help some game developers ?

Download models and use them in video game projects is a great idea guys. We have been using some models from an asset store for the development of Excubitor. Annotations are also very interesting for me, as I always like to explain a bit about the details of the more complicated models.

Thank you for your time guys, we appreciate it. Good luck with Excubitor !

Jc

Today I’m talking to John Mesplay, whose hard-sf models were impressing the team.

Could you introduce yourself to our readers: Who are you and where are you from?

I’m John Mesplay, a Southeast Kansas native, US Army veteran and 3D artist, gamer.

Can you tell us about what aspects of 3D you specialize in?

Modeling and Texturing.

How did you first get started? What was that ‘I want to do this’ moment?

It was a long process, starting with 2D photo manipulation (4 years ago) but I soon saw where films and games were going and how awesome the 3D art was getting, like Final Fantasy Spirits Within. I then one Christmas break slowly moved into learning 3D

Salarian STG by JohnMesplay on Sketchfab

Do you have any academic training or are you self-taught?

I have a tradition Bachelors in Fine Arts degree from Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas. But when it comes to 3D I’m largely self-taught with some help from the magic of googling.

Tell us a little bit more about your workflow/process?

It depends on the project but mostly consists of Zbrush, Maya, Photoshop and Quixel Suite. Using what those programs are best at to achieve my 3D goals.

What project(s) are you working on right now?

I’m working on a lot of smaller projects mainly environment or small vehicle assets to get better at texturing using the Quixel suite. After that I’ll move back to some older, larger models (like Exosoldat or M1151W) so I can texture then more confidently. A small personal texturing crusade!

Can you talk a little bit about your favorite model you currently have posted on Sketchfab?

Drone Dead Orbit TM_2 by JohnMesplay on Sketchfab

Right now that’s the second version texture of the Dead Orbit Drone. It’s my fav because honestly I had the most fun working on it. There is a lot of my personality “hidden” on the model if you zoom in close enough to see. I wanted to make some fan art of my favorite faction from the game I’m playing right now Destiny. And texture it in a way that makes it look like its been on one of the specific planets you can play on mars.

What would be your personal advice to someone getting started in 3D?

As a modeler, work hard, stick to one 3D package like, Max or Maya, and learn topology first. Then move on to more advanced things like texturing, Zbrush and so on.

Tyson Murphy Dagger by JohnMesplay on Sketchfab

What are your thoughts on 3D printing, Are/Do you plan to work with it?

I think it is great. I’ve done some freelance work for a small company that prints miniatures it seems to be the future.

How did you come across Sketchfab and how does it helped with your project(s)?

A fellow artist posted some of his work on facebook and I wanted to give it a try. It’s awesome to let people see your project interactively.

What inspires you?

Scifi games and movies. People pushing themselves and their perceived boundaries.

Thanks John!

- Bart

The winners of the Halloween 3D Printing Contest are in! Over a 100 entries were submitted and picking a winner wasn’t easy: the quality of the entries was excellent, and of course they needed to be 3D printable too!

Read on to see the winners, and visit the Halloween 3D Printing Contest gallery to see all entries.

Finally, a big thanks to our partners, CG Cookie and Shapeways, who made this contest into a huge succes!

1st Place: Jack-O-Lantern by aidinsalsabili.

Jack-O-Lantern by aidinsalsabili on Sketchfab

2nd Place: Pumpkin Fingerbiter by n.metivier

Pumpkin Fingerbiter by n.metivier on Sketchfab

3rd Place: Baby Jack by Landestroyer

Baby Jack by Landestroyer on Sketchfab

Community Choice: Traditional Jack-O-Lantern by Jakob Baldwin

Traditional Jack-O-Lantern by Jakob Baldwin on Sketchfab

Thanks for participating everyone, we’ll see you again next year :)

- Bart

This is the first post in a series of 7 that focuses on reaching a larger audience for your work on Sketchfab. This week we’re dealing with the basics: being an awesome artist.

Let’s be honest: you need to publish high-quality, inspiring work if you want to grow a following. What that means is different for each niche, but have a look around on the site by searching for your topic to see what other people make.  Next, stay inspired by using the follow feature to stay connected to your favorite artists. You’ll receive an update in your inbox whenever they post new work.

(Image: Chibi Gear Solid, by glenatron)

You can still change many things after uploading your model! For example, you can fine-tune your materials in the Material Editor and change your model orientation, field of view and environment in the Scene Editor. It’s worth exploring these editors well as they’ll give you a lot of extra control over your models.

Next, make sure your model is set up for the best possible viewing angle when someone visits it. Just pick the view you like and click the ‘Take screenshot’ button. This will record the current camera position and orientation and will re-generate the model’s thumbnail image.

Raceship 2014 by Mestaty on Sketchfab

Once your design is ready, have a look at our Camera Effects. Adding some subtle effects can have a dramatic impact on your work. Enhance the atmosphere for your scene with our filters that include vignette, bloom, sharpness and color settings.

Finally, perform a thorough check on your model to make sure it’s not suffering from common issues like long load times, ‘shaky’ models and flickering geometry. We offer solutions to these in our troubleshooting FAQ, and of course you can always ask our support team for help on support@sketchfab.com.

Publishing great work can earn you a place in our staff picks gallery. (Sharing it on social media and mentioning us helps too! More on that in a few weeks). Our team looks at every new model upload and hand-picks a few models to be featured every day. Being on this gallery will give your model a nice pageview boost and will usually lead to new people following you!

Centaur by patrix on Sketchfab

Pro-tip: Add annotations to highlight points of interest about your work or to create a ‘virtual tour around it. This will help you tell a stronger story with your model.

I’ll see you again next week when we’ll look at the importance of telling a story.

- Bart

The most fascinating news this week was Philae’s rendez-vous with 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. After some nail-biting hours it turned out it has bounced once and then finally settled. And guess what? A detailed model of the comet popped up on Sketchfab indicating the initial landing spot, only to be updated later when the final location was known. The embed that got the most views was the one on TechCrunch. Props to Steren Giannini for creating this model!

The 67P comet model was also featured on the popular Popular Science website.

Other cool embeds this week:

• 3D Printing Industry: Lumecluster’s 3D Printed Masks Might Help You Find Your Real Self
• CarThrottle: These Awesome Interactive Car Renderings Will Occupy You For Hours
• Its Art Mag: Sketchfab Real Time 3d Models Selection #5

- Bart

What happens if you give free access to models of cultural heritage? Here’s a great story about the Cramlington Learning Village in the UK who are using the models from the British Museum on Sketchfab to make their students curators of their own ‘mini-British Museum’!

I talked to Graham Quince about this project.

Granite head of Amenemhat III by britishmuseum on Sketchfab

Hi Graham, how are you using 3D printing on your school?

We currently have 3 3D printers at Cramlington Learning Village (2 UP! Plus 2s and one MakerBot Replicator). I’m one of three web designers. The students have been designing models in Sketchup, I’ve been assisting/refining using Cinema4D. Our head of construction, Nick Macgregor is building a rotating platform which we plan to use to scan objects using 123D Catch. The track the rotating top uses was designed by a student and 3D printed. We’ve found the 3D printers excite both students and staff with possibilities of the new technology. With the printing taking a few hours, I’ve set up a webcam which students can dial in and watch, and they do.

3D print of the Granite head of Amenemhat III

How did this idea come to be?

I saw the Sketchfab story on Gizmodo last week about the British Museum offering models to download. I forwarded the story to Nick and our head of Humanities, Damian Clark and we decided we’d print a couple of the models.

3D print of Horus (Falcon)

What’s next?

We’re thinking we might set up a mini-British Museum, with the students as curators (although this is still in the concept stage). I’ve just printed the statue of Horus too, which has come out really well as well.

We’re planning a research project for our Year 8 students about the British Empire and Slavery. Originally it was thought the students would have to spend some time creating paper-mache models, but since the article appeared, we’re considering switching to printing the 3D artefacts. This will bring the focus back to the actual topic. Our students will be expected to research the topics involved and present and display objects from the time.

Thanks Graham, best of luck with this cool project!

- Bart

3D Concept Art is a new artist portfolio website that’s currently in ‘Final Beta’. Of course, you can’t have a portfolio these days without interactive 3D so we’re happy to announce that they added Sketchfab support!

3D Concept Art team member Felipe Chamorro comments:

Sketchfab brings new possibilities for showing your artwork. For getting feedback and visualize projects fast. As it’s a commonly used tool for 3D Artists, I believe this is a future medium for exploring and engaging not only artists but also different types of viewers. Turning around a concept is a very important part in the process for finding cons and refining ideas. A perfect tool for a more concrete relationship between you and for example an employer. Therefore we believe by adding Sketchfab can bring many possibilities for our members at 3D Concept Art Community.

Well said Felipe, thanks!

To learn more about how to post your Sketchfab work on 3D Concept Art, read their blogpost.