It professional is not the type of personnel i would trust to handle this type of work. A technical artist should be a more appropriate choice, but even for a pro, I think you're grossly underestimating the amount of work required for your plan.

...but we only need game models, not usual free. I am looking forward for any information where I can find available game models.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games

In the "Open engine and free content" section, sort by the "Dimensions" column and download all of the ones that say "3D".

Nypyren, we can't use 3D models directly from open source games, there is no programs to change format into which we need, but if we could get primary models, before it was modified for the game, it might work, so that's why i'm asking and trying to find.

What format(s) do you think you need to be able to work with?

If you're looking for models in pre-shipping formats you'll probably need to try directly contacting developers to ask for them.

Nypyren, we can't use 3D models directly from open source games, there is no programs to change format into which we need, but if we could get primary models, before it was modified for the game, it might work, so that's why i'm asking and trying to find.

3D models don't "know" that they're going to be used in a game. There is no checkbox "this is a game model". Models are exported from Max, Maya, Blender, etc into the format loaded by the game.

For example, on the list of free models in my first link, there's a model of a Dragunov rifle. You *could* use that model in a game, or you render out a nice desktop wallpaper of it, or you could make a cinematic movie with it, or you could even 3D print it! The model doesn't care what you do with it!

From the game development perspective, there are only two types of models.

My FIRST link provides locations to download pre-exported models.
My SECOND link provides locations to get game engines which come with exported models and POSSIBLY come with pre-exported models as well.

If you can't find what you need in EITHER of my links, then you need to properly describe EXACTLY what you want which neither link covers.

.obj and .stl formats would work, yes i'm trying to contact developers too. Ok i will explain Nypyren. We need game model because our main segment will be gamers, and the idea is to let them print their favorite characters, weapons etc, BUT first we need model examples from open source games, because we can't afford to buy models from popular games yet. But the trick is that open source games has twisted formats, and there is no possibility to use them, unless i could get them directly from developers. And considering that open source games are free to use, i hope i will find fan made models, also as jbadams said and what i am doing right now - contact developers directly OR hope that some of them will see my post and be willing to share. And please don't judge if i was not accurate enough, all of this is new for me, but i'm learning.

The problem you will have is that much of the detail on the game models is not actual geometry on the model. Have a look on Google at things like normal mapping and parallax occlusion mapping or screen-space ambient occlusion and you'll see that a lot of what looks like geometric detail on game models is actually an illusion caused by some clever use of textures, height maps, post-processing steps and so on.

So when you come to 3D print such a model, you're unlikely to end up with something that looks like the model in game, unless there happens to have been made a very high detail model that was used to create the normal and occlusion maps, and that original high-detail model is somehow available.

This is basically what we are trying to explain to you.

In addition to what Aardvajk said, I question if you really thought your business plan through... did you contact actual game developers if they are interested in your services?

As they are the IP holder of whatever you want to print and sell to gamers here, they are your real customers. Actually, I would let them handle the selling the merchandise part, and just offer a very well priced merchandise production service to the actual IP holder... a lot of them will want to control how and where their merchandise is sold, so you might have a higher chance to actually get their green light to print their models.

And on the other hand, the developers themselves do no only hold the IP, chances are good that they have the original high poly model on their drives that was used to create the game model. You will have a much better chance to get something printable by starting with one of those models, and most of them will either be in obj or fbx format, or a proprietary ZBrush or Mudbox format (but again, these tools are industry standarts, if you want to deal with the big boys in the 3D community, you will need access to these).

Trying to get an ingame model make you look like you try to go forward with this without the IP holders consent. That might not have been your intention, but sadly I don't think I am the only one getting this impression.

I can only guess you are trying to build a new business here and need good examples of what you can do before any serious IP holder would let you near their models, which I can understand. But be a little bit more open with people on that, so they understand not only what you need, but also why you need it. Will make people more helpful I when they see you as more than a potential IP thief I am sure.

Just my 2 cents

Thanks for replies. Sure, i will try to be more open. Well right now i'm on my internship and my job is to find what i mentioned before. I will not work with models, because i don't have qualifications for that, but i can ensure that this is not a waste of time. As for IP, open source games is for public use, so there is no way its concerning developers. Also i have successfully contacted with few open source game developers and their only request was to credit them. And after reading so many pessimistic opinions - if we will fail with free game models, hey, at least we tried and we will start to work with licensed models.

Thanks for replies. Sure, i will try to be more open. Well right now i'm on my internship and my job is to find what i mentioned before. I will not work with models, because i don't have qualifications for that, but i can ensure that this is not a waste of time. As for IP, open source games is for public use, so there is no way its concerning developers. Also i have successfully contacted with few open source game developers and their only request was to credit them. And after reading so many pessimistic opinions - if we will fail with free game models, hey, at least we tried and we will start to work with licensed models.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand what you were looking for, and I am pretty sure it is obvious for others. The question was more "why" you are looking into this, as in what comes after your testing with opensource models, which is now becoming more obvious thanks to you giving out additional information.

I am not sure myself, but I see the opensource gaming market as a very small niche, which might NOT have enough "brand recognition" to really make models from the games a valuable resource enough to gamers to warrant building a business around it. The only opensource game characters I would know immidiatly out of my had would be the flying squirrel from the opensource Blender initiative game from some years back (which was based on a movie, again an opensource Blender project).

So while I would guess you will find somebody that lets you print his models under an opensource license, I question if there is enough of a market for a successfull business if your restrict yourself to opensource models / games. That is why I gave my recommendation of making this a service for original IP holders in the gaming industry.

A last bit of advice... please don't take this as a harsh critique, because it is meant with the best intent:

If you get into a technical forum to ask a rather technical question (or it could be an art forum with a rather art specific question), be prepared to talk techie-gibberish at least a little bit. Yes, this is the beginners section, nobody expects you to be the expert in 3D Rendering, and everyone tries to be as helpful as possible (thus all the well meant questions in the beginning besides some.... ehr... ironic comments because of the vague starting question by you).

You should be able to at least tell art from code, and an artist from a coder... I know this might come off as harsh, you might be neither a technical person nor an artist for all I know (which is just that you are an intern), and you might have been put to the task by your boss without knowing exactly what this was all about.

Just take this away for the future: if you want to get quick answers that are to the point, and make a good impression on a technical forum (or any professional forum for that matter), show that you made your homework, learned the basics about the domain of the question and tried googling your question before you start a thread. And if you need to, "cheat"... ask your IT guys or artists if you are unsure, I am sure they are as happy to help you with your research as we are here on the forum.

Getting snide remarks from multiple other posters can seem like the other posters are d***s... but it could also mean you yourself just posted something that sounded quite weird for a person more knowledgeable about the topic...

Again, not meant personal, just trying to help getting better responses in less time in the future.