Our teams previous software is widely used across the vfx industry and used on a likely majority of vfx heavy films released from Hollywood.
But we are like google docs compared to microsoft word. Aiming to be good enough for most tasks but we will not replace Maya at the high end.
I'm not calling into question your or your team's skill.
I think that your browser based 3D package will likely serve as the entry point to 3D graphics for lots of people just like shitty shareware was for me in the 90's which is a really good thing.
What does "good enough for most tasks" mean to you? I'm guessing by a hobbyist definition you're probably already there. I can't imagine an FX house or a game development studio using something like this for real work. I'd give you some useful input but I don't know how to bound the search space. I don't really understand what the point of the tool is from an optimization perspective. It doesn't look like you've got a business model in place?
P.S. I see in your comment history that you wrote Krakatoa?? I thought that was Bobo Petrov?
Given that it is free, you can just try it. :)
> I think that your browser based 3D package will likely serve as the entry point to 3D graphics for lots of people just like shitty shareware was for me in the 90's which is a really good thing.
The most common criticism of our tool is that it is too advanced and uses paradigms that are more familiar to experienced artists than new ones. We are working on solutions to this.
> What does "good enough for most tasks" mean to you? I'm guessing by a hobbyist definition you're probably already there. I can't imagine an FX house or a game development studio using something like this for real work.
One issue we've found is that it can be hard to work a cloud tool into a traditional desktop pipeline. But the advantages of our tool is that we have both a JavaScript plugin SDK as well as a rest API: https://clara.io/learn/sdk
> I'd give you some useful input but I don't know how to bound the search space. I don't really understand what the point of the tool is from an optimization perspective.
We generally know the features we are missing compared to Maya and 3DS Max. We are mostly modeling and rendering and publishing right now. We are adding more animation features next. Still no schedule for simulation features.
> It doesn't look like you've got a business model in place?
We are doing okay on that front. :)
> Krakatoa?? I thought that was Bobo Petrov?
I wrote the core of the actual renderer (the piece that generates the images) with help from Marc Wiebe. Bobo wrote the 3DS Max GUI -- which is very important as well. One of the first films to use Krakatoa was Wes Craven's Cursed: http://exocortex.org/siggraph/2005-2.html
I also created Deadline (a popular render manager), and started Frantic Films Software to sell it. Proof: http://cgpress.org/archives/frantic_films_software_releases_...
But I left that group in 2005 to start Exocortex, which has its own popular VFX-related products: http://exocortex.com
I'm sure Clara is lovely for people trying to whet their appetite for 3D modelling but it's unfair to present it as equivalent to a real 3D software suite. It makes me sad when people only ever have access to shitty tools and they don't realize what they could do with a bigger lever.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725792 <--- relevant comment