Supreme HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH 3D MODELS SCANNING ITEMS | PASSIVE INCOME METHOD

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Intro What is this guide?
What we won’t be doing: this guide is not about drop-shipping, social media, freelancing, affiliate marketing, blogging or probably anything else you have first thought about
let’s get started!
What does VR/AR, video games & special effects in movies or tv shows have in common? All of these things need 3D models and with releases such as Metaverse, VRchat or ‘The Wild’ the popularity and need of 3D modeling is growing every day. I assume you are wondering ‘but I don’t know how to make 3D models’. Don’t worry, neither do I. We won’t be using Blender or any other complicated software that requires months of learning. However this guide is about creating and putting 3D models on the market and you will learn how to do it with the magic Photogrammetry
If you have heard of photogrammetry before you probably think there is no way you can easily earn money doing it, and if so, you are wrong, so please continue reading. If you have not heard of this magic word before, here is a quick explanation.
Photogrammetry is a process of extracting 3D information from photos and turning them into 3D models. Previously such process would take days of manual labor, but with recent development in artificial intelligence and smartphone capabilities, it is finally possible to create 3D models in minutes without actually 3D modeling anything and you will learn how to monetize it in this guide.
The best part?
It’s a digital object you can sell over and over again! That’s right, upload your scanned 3D model to a marketplace once and it stays there generating passive income for years to come.
 
Tutorial / Let’s get ready!
How do I create a 3D model?
- You will need a smartphone with a decent camera I am using iPhone 15 for this.
- You will need a something called a light-box.It’s just a box with plain white background and good lighting, buy it online or easily make it your self. Here is an example from amazon:
 


 started with one I made myself
You will need software and it all depends on what device you are using for this.
Windows: I don’t use Windows, so I cannot share my personal experience, but there seem to be plenty of free software for this on Windows. I know for many of you it might be the only option, so the best program I’ve found is called Meshroom. It is free and fairly simple to use.
Watch the tutorials on the youtube to get started and you will figure it out in no time.
Mac OS: If you have an Apple Silicon Mac you have won, because this is as simple as drag&drop. Download an app called PhotoCatch, drag over the photos and it exports a 3Dmodel for you to sell. That's it, it is literally as simple as it can get. If you have an older Intel Mac there are a lot of similar programs, but they are not very good, you should probably just use bootcamp and install Meshroom as well.
Linux: Same situation as Windows, download Meshroom
.iOS: There are plenty of great apps for this on iOS, but it is probably no surprise that all of them are unfortunately paid. The most popular ones are PhotoCatch and Polycam. Some of them do offer free monthly credits, but it will take longer to earn money this way.
Android: This is probably the second best options after Mac OS, there are apps that make the process simple, quick and most importantly free. The most popular app for this seems to be called KIRI Engine and it does have in-app purchases, but the beauty of Android is that you can 'try before you buy’ In case you don’t find this ethically correct there is Polycam app for Android aswell, which offers some free credits every month. There are a lot of other free apps that can do this as well, but the quality is not as good compared to these two.
Tutorial / I am ready!
At this step you have your light-box ready, smartphone in hand and software installed.
What to do next?
Insert your object inside the light-box and start taking photos! But wait, what object, you ask? Well, it can be literally anything, we all live in different places and have different items in our homes. It does not have to be anything special or pretty. My most sold object is a dirty kitchen sponge, closely followed by a rotten apple I had in my kitchen
You can scan anything you have at hand and it might sell. Obviously it is not a guarantee and we are here to make that guaranteed passive income.
So let’s add some secret sauce! Most 3D model marketplaces (listed in the next chapter) offer something called analytics. To access those you most likely will need an established seller account and to get that you will need to have some work you can show, so let’s take a step back.
Take any item you want and photograph it as shown below, turn it into a 3D object and upload to a marketplace of your choice (will get to that). Repeat this process 5-10 times and you will have a small portfolio you can use to become a seller. Then you will get access to marketplace analytics which you can use to determine what object are the m st desired and easiest to sell.In my experience, the hottest 3D models are often the simple ones. It does not matter where you live or what you have, because there is definitely something around you that can be sold as a 3D model and someone out there wants to use it in their project.
Bonus idea: if you’re not too self conscious 3D scanned arms/legs are very easy to sell.
Important notice: You will not be able to turn any reflective or featureless items into 3D objects using this method. This includes anything with an overly shiny finish, for example a smartphone,golden necklace, water bottle, empty glass, etc. Make it easy for yourself an opt for simple items such as: vegetables, fruits, rocks, plants, wooden/fabric objects, meat, toys, shells, etc

1. The goal is to take a lot of photos from all the angles possible. Aim at around 100 photosper object, no matter how small it is. Use an overhead lighting to avoid shadows. Prop the object if needed. Here is an example
   
   

2. You have a gallery full of photos from every angle and ready to convert it into 3D object.
Upload the photos to the software and use the automatic mode. Most programs have a way to edit/fix the scan if there are issues, but as someone who is not experienced with 3D modeling I found it to be easier just taking more/better photos until no post-processing is needed. It is a lot easier to spam that photo button on your phone than learn how to fix a gap in a 3D models
3. I cannot show you how to do this in every app mentioned before, but I here is an example using Polycam. Even though it’s a paid service you can download the app try it for free (no credit card required). It is very easy to use and it will help you understand how it all works
 


Now export the file as a 3D model in any of these formats: OBJ, STL, GLB, FBX, etc.I recommend OBJ because it’s just a simple text file with code and can be converted intoother formats easily. You will also get a .MTL file and a folder with textures after exporting your file.
You might notice that none of the photos use in this guide a mine, but rather fetched from
the internet, but I told you I am using this method myself. Why is that? Truth is, I haven’t scanned anything in months or have any photos saved. The models I have uploaded previously are earning me enough passive income every day to feel satisfied and focus on other projects.This is not my main income and I don’t know if it can be yours, but it is nice to have some extra free money every day, even if it’s only enough for a coffee. Besides, the scaling possibilities are quite unlimited.

Tutorial / Print the money
Now you have a 3D object you made yourself and it is sitting there waiting to be sold. How todo that? Well, there are a lot of 3D model marketplaces and I cannot predict which one will make you the most money, but here are the most popular ones

SKETCHFAB:
This is the most popular website among photogrammetry artists (yes, you are an artist now, congratulations), unfortunately it gained it’s popularity not due to the sales amount, but rather how easy and intuitive it is to upload your models and lists them for sale. The website is great and you will get your model on it in just a few minutes, but when it comes to sales it might be a bit tricky.You need to fill a form to request a seller account and in my case it took weeks until I got approved. I did get some sales on Sketchfab, but it is by far not one of my biggest earners. It’s a great platform to get started though!

TURBOSQUID:
This is the real money printer when it comes to 3D marketplaces, but it comes with a cost of your time. The seller dashboard is slow, unintuitive and confusing. Unlike Sketchfab, there is no waiting time, anyone can become a seller at any time,but that is for a reason. TurboSquid platform is a greedy one and will claim 60% of your earnings. Outrageous, isn’t it? I have only a few models listed for sale and they do, indeed, sell well, but the earnings are minuscule due to themassive fees. The listing process is a hassle, million fields to fill, categories to select. If you have patience and willing to scale this to the moon I’d say this isthe best platform, due to the amount of traffic it is getting every day. TurboSquid is owned by Shutter-stock and professional movie producers or CGI artist are no strangers to the platform, so whatever you have it will sell. I just don’t think it’s the right platform for beginners.

CGTRADER:
This platform has least traffic by far and it’s not that popular in general, but somehow 90% of my sales come from it. It takes about a 2 weeks from the listing to first sale as the item needs to be indexed for buyers to find. Creat-ing listings of objects for sale are not as easy as on Sketchfab, but not as complicated as TurboSquid makes it either, I’d say somewhere in the mid-dle. I have around 100 models listed on this platform and get a steady passive income with PayPal payment every month. All of them are simple objects made from photos taken with my phone. As I said previously my top earner for the past 6+ months has been a 3D model of a dirty sponge.
 
Extra/How to create the listings
Here is the file structure: First and most important you will need to upload your 3D file, texture folder (zip it) and sometimes photos of the object as well. (Take some screenshots in the software you’ve used) Each platform is different, but most have easy to follow guides on how to upload and sell models. In this example I will show you one of my listings on Cgtrader.
(It will be removed for privacy reasons)

Here is a screenshot of the object for sale:


Here is the file structure:

Here is the title, description & tags:



All this might look intimidating, but it’s not that scary and you will get a hang of it very quickly.Take pictures > Load to program of choice > Export File > Upload to marketplace
Rinse and repeat for as long as you want
So you know how important is to add good amount of relevant text to the pages you want to rank well. Creating listings like these is no exception, the better you describe your item, the more sales you are likely to get. As you can see the description is quite long and detailed, but nobody has time to write that, so let’s as our good friend, ChatGPT
As mentioned previously, each platform has analytics page that is there to help the sellers earn more money. You can browse top keywords and find most searched 3D models or look for a niche that has daily searches but no models for sale.
 
Let's talk about money
Pricing
As you can see creating a listing and getting those 3D files up for sale is very straight forward and shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes of your time, but how about the pricing?
Most platforms suggest the price when you input the title, but some leave it for you to decide.
In my experience you should never under sell yourself or your work and objects priced at $1 - $2
sell a lot worse than those priced at $3 - $5. There are plenty of 3D object priced at $50 and more,
but let’s be realistic, nobody is willing to pay that money, unless you truly offering something exquisite.
I recommend staying in the range of $3 - $5 to get those weekly sales rolling.
 
Earnings
I won’t spread false claims and I don’t think everyone who starts this will be getting ton of sales at the beginning. When it comes to earning online, persistence and patience are always the key to success. You WILL earn money eventually if you stick with it. This isn’t a new method I invented, it’s just a less known way to generate passive income that has been around for quite some time.
So how scalable is?
 
I honestly think that this method has almost infinite scalability, because there is no limit on how many objects you can upload or sell. On top of that there are definitely plenty of ways to add some extra twists to make it even better income source.
Keep in mind that the money I made from this came with no effort at all. I did NOT do any advertising, I only focused on a single platform and I did not follow any analytics, I just scanned items around the house without overthinking it too much. Imagine listing your models on 5+ marketplaces and putting those marketing skills to use.
Create a social media pages where you post all the new models you have created, play around with keywords and descriptions to get the ones that rank the best and guarantee you the first page of the marketplace. Or maybe just forget all that and grind on quantity rather than quality, upload 100s of models every weeks and make your store the largest, stealing all the traffic from other sellers. With the right mindset this method can truly be lucrative, just please don’t expect instant results, be perceptive and remember - You will only succeed if you take action!
Bonus: if you live somewhere interesting, scanning environment with your phone and turning it into 3D spaces can be a very lucrative.
 
GOOD LUCK!

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