Poly Haven is a curated public asset library for game designers and visual effects artists, providing free high quality 3D assets in an easily obtainable manner.

We're funded by regular donations from our Patrons, who have been amazing at supporting us over the last four years and helping us become a sustainable source of free content, but we always want to do more :)

One of the main reasons why we started Poly Haven, instead of continuing to run separate platforms for each type of asset, was to work together on more thematic content - this is where the Smuggler's Cove comes in.

Project Outline

The Smuggler's Cove is a tropical environment set in the 17th century; a small sheltered bay where - or so my informants tell me - nefarious characters conduct their business and trade questionably acquired goods, away from the prying eyes of colonial authorities.

We're creating a collection of 3D assets around this theme - photoscanned environments, modular sets, props, and tileable surface textures - for you to use in your next-gen video games and animations.

We've already put in a significant amount of work into this project, including a trip to the Caribbean to scan environment assets and capture reference photos, but we still have a way to go.

What You Get

What's in it for you if you support this project?

All the 3D assets that we create for this theme.

But not just for you - for everybody.

Wait, so if everybody gets the assets, why would you support us? What do you really get from it that others don't?

That's one of the weird things about Poly Haven - it's not about you, it's "for the greater good". You're helping us create content for everyone; including you.

We do still want to thank you though, so we'll give you access to the stuff we create long before everyone else.

But just like all the other assets we create, eventually it'll be available for free to everyone. This may take around 6 months, so essentially you're getting temporary exclusive access.

Weird right? :)

The Timeline

• September (complete): Early work on assets, concept art, and defining the scope of the project.
• October & November: Majority of asset work.
• December: Finalizing assets. Break, we have families too!
• January: Project completion - deliver assets to supporters.
• February - July: Gradually upload assets to polyhaven.com, free public access.

Once the project is completed in January, we'll share our work with our supporters - that includes any of our "Early Access" tier patrons as well.

We'll also be uploading the project files as an asset bundle to the Unreal Marketplace as a paid product, to be a convenient way to access the assets in-engine and support our future work at the same time.

This makes four different ways to get these assets:

1. By supporting us here (€15).
2. By waiting for us to finish and purchasing them on the Unreal Marketplace (€25).
3. By supporting us on Patreon at the Early Access tier ($5 per month).
4. By waiting a few more months to have them freely available on polyhaven.com

Software Support

One of the main targets of this project is for us to explore the option of making the Unreal Engine one of Poly Haven's officially supported platforms long-term, in addition to our current focus on Blender.

To do this, all of the assets we create for the Smuggler's Cove will be available natively for the Unreal Engine.

We will of course still support Blender and other software, none of that changes, we're just trying to do more :)

Cost Breakdown

We're super into transparency, so here's how we worked out that €17,000 funding target:

If you'd like more information or have a question, just ask!

Why Are We Doing This?

Considering we already receive funding from Patreon, advertising, grants and other donations - and we seem to being doing fine - your first question is probably: Why do you need more money?

Well this is where things get interesting! Put on your "big picture" hat and follow me down this rabbit hole...

Early WIP layout

Have you ever been asked in an interview, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

You probably didn't answer, "Exactly where I'm at now" :)

We're really happy with where we're at now, financially speaking. Things are very sustainable thanks to our Patreon supporters, and we've proven over the last 4 years that slow and consistent growth is an inevitable result of that.

We're not going to stop that at all, but what if we could give it a little boost?

Is there a way we can be sustainable and grow a bit more in short bursts? Both in terms of funding, and as a result, the scope and quality of assets we make available?

That's what this campaign is going to help us figure out.

Making lots of money or "getting big" has never been a goal of ours. All of us at Poly Haven do what we do out of passion and care for the community. Our goal is simply to make assets for you, to keep doing this, and to get better at it.

So here's the big idea: a long term two-pronged strategy for funding Poly Haven's assets:

1. The Continuum:
   We maintain a sustainable flow of new assets, funded by Patreon. These assets vary widely, and are meant to fill the gaps in our library. They're the kinds of assets that have multiple uses and might be needed in multiple projects.
   We can currently churn out about 3-4 of these assets per week, though we don't make any promises to avoid the "quantity over quality" trap.
   Patreon funding also covers things like core staff salaries, site maintenance, hardware and R&D time.
2. The Sprint:
   Once or twice a year, we crowdfund a major project like this one, which funds new artists to work on specific content around a certain theme. These assets are specific to their intended use (in this case a video game set in a colonial-era coastal town) and might not see much use outside of that theme.
   This doesn't mean they're less valuable, but it does mean we would be less likely to create them otherwise.
   The funds are used for specific practical purposes, things like travel costs and artist time.

We already have "The Continuum" working, now this campaign is meant to help us with "The Sprint".

As a company, we're completely open about our finances, and that's never going to change. We also want to be open about the decisions we make, and how we reached them. That's why I'm explaining this all to you now :)

If you want to know more generally why Poly Haven is doing all this, why we release our work completely for free, you can read about that here. You're also welcome to talk to us about anything, we want to be completely open.

What if... ?

... we blast past the funding target?

We have a number of stretch goals in mind - when this seems like it may be a possiblity, we'll figure out a realistic cost estimate and announce the new goals:

1. More props and environment set pieces for the scene.
2. Vegetation and foliage - plants, trees, ground cover - using a custom light scanner.
3. Characters and wildlife!

... we end up using less funds than we received?

We'll simply put it towards funding our future work. All of this will be shown transparently in our finance reports, and we're happy to talk money and answer any hard questions you have on Discord any time :)

... we don't reach the funding target?

That's OK!

Since this is our first crowdfunding campaign, we're not sure what to expect! So we're planning to finish this project even if we don't reach our goal - that just means we'll have fewer other assets being published on polyhaven.com early next year, as we'd be spending all our time and resources on this project alone.

About Us

Poly Haven is a team of global artists working on high quality 3D assets that we want to share with the world.

Freedom of use is super important to us, which is why we release everything we make under the CC0 license, which makes it practically free of copyright and any limitations to how you're allowed to use our work.

Why are we doing it this way instead of selling our assets? Because we can!

And also because we want to show the world that it's actually possible to support artists in a sustainable manner without being greedy. To bring some stability to an industry where it's common to be out of work for months at a time between studio projects.

Our Team

Rob Tuytel, is project lead and director of all things in the Smuggler's Cove, while also creating much of the environment and assembling everything together in Unreal.

Greg Zaal is filling the producer role for this project, making sure the wheels keep turning, and writing this giant wall of text :)

Rico Cilliers is one of our core technical artists, working on all sorts of things from props and foliage to texture scans and R&D.

James Cock is our resident shading expert, also working on a wide variety of props and coordinating with asset donors.

Jurita Burger is our designer, helping out with all the things us 3D artists tend to suck at, like fictional logo designs, ornamental patterns and pirate flags.

Dimitrios Savva will shoot anything that doesn't move - with a camera that is. He works on texture scans and HDRIs.

To see what we've been up to in the past, a sample of the quality of work to expect from us, simply check out polyhaven.com :)