Minting Guide

Minting is the process of releasing your avatar on the Ethereum blockchain as an NFT.

This reference guide is not a legal document and may be not completely accurate.

  • Rules are flexible, and special cases should be discussed with the avatar on-boarding team.

How to mint ?

  • The Minting process is done in the Somnium Space PC Client.
  • To be able to mint, you first need to be validated by the person in charge of Avatar On-boarding.
  • Quality and authenticity of the avatar must be verified.
  • A thumbnail image (Open Sea preview) and a presentation video must be prepared before minting.

Validation process steps

To provide a minimum level of trust, every avatar artist must pass the manual validation process, (even if you have been validated once). This process consists of verifying the authenticity and quality of each avatar.

  1. Having an understanding of the minting process through this guide or other sources.
  2. Introducing you and your work. This can include if you own VR, if you can use Unity, any other software you might use, previous work, and what software was used to make the product.
  3. Quality control. Together the avatar is testing to meet minimum requirement standards.
  4. Thumbnail Image (with correct size and official Somnium Space border) and presentation video (To showcase the avatar).
  5. The Avatar On-boarding team will send a request to Somnium Space

Authenticity

  • Somnium Space will only accept 100% original avatars.
  • You cannot use any base texture or base model (or any other asset) before asking the avatar on-boarding team first.
  • If the artist has partners, they must all agree to, and respect all terms and conditions.

Minting cost

  • The minting process typically requires $50-$100 US in Cubes and will be done in the “Somnium Space PC Client”. In addition, you will need to pay gas fees (around $50-$100 US extra (ETH)).
  • Once minted, the asset will be transferred into the minter wallet by Somnium Space server.
  • OpenSea may require one time Activation fee around $50-$100 US (ETH).

Avatars are Protected!

Somnium Space Avatar NFTs are stored in Somnium Space’s servers and only accessible by the game. So they have a protection against piracy.

Selling

  • Only OpenSea market is allowed to vend.
  • Only public sales on OpenSea are allowed.
  • Each purchase will have a transaction fee. You are not allowed to avoid the transaction fees.
    (2.5% Open Sea + 7.5% Somnium Space).

Authorized Minter

An artist can authorize an other person to mint his avatar. In this case the Artist and the person minting must fully consent to the terms and conditions.

Avatars must be completely unique

  • Somnium Space Avatars must be protected and unique, selling a variation or a copies on an other platform is prohibited for this reason.
  • Uniqueness is approved by Somnium Space avatar on-boarding team.

Avatar Multiple Copies

  • An avatar can be sold in multiple copies. As long as it is clear in the description and in the picture (ex: 6 copies minted).
  • If you specify the amount of copies, you can’t sell more, even later.
  • The description is like a contract with the buyer, you can’t go back.

Avatar Variations

  • An avatar variation is an avatar that is almost a copies of the original. The color can be different, the style can be a little different. But it’s not enough to say it’s a complete new avatar.
  • The rules are the same as for the copies, you can’t make a variation if you didn’t specified there will be variations.
  • If a variation if different enough (approved by Somnium Space avatar on-boarding team) it can be considered unique. (so a new series).

Respect The Buyer, Be Transparent

  • “What you see is what you got”, you must tell the buyer the number of total Copies or Variations you intend on making, including what you intend on making later.
  • A picture with only a name is telling: “this is a Unique NFT”. So you can’t make more variation/copier later.

Derivative Content

  • Only the actual owner of the minted avatar is allowed to further mint/publish any kind of artwork based directly on the model (picture, video, etc).
  • If an artist no longer possesses that Avatar NFT, they can no longer create any NFTs containing the visual representation of the Avatar. Only the owner will be allowed.
  • Simply, only the owner of an Avatar/Variation NFT possess the rights of using it.
  • The Owner of an avatar can make commercial use of the avatar. (conference, video, picture, twitter, etc).

Avatar Data Access

  • Normally avatar data (asset/model/texture etc) is not accessible by the owner, only Somnium Space can access the model to load it in the game.
  • You can use the Somnium Space Builder to preview your avatar using it’s built-in feature since you will not have access to the files yourself.
  • The original artist should ask the present owner of the “NFT” for artwork minting in the event they do not own it anymore.
  • The minting process gives the rights to the next owner, to use the avatar for commercial use (conference, video, picture, twitter, etc).