

Sketchfab: 3D Portfolio website - showwebgl
http://sketchfab.me
And an example: http://karolmiklas.sketchfab.me
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virtualritz
I don't see many new models since I last checked the site a few months back.
Traction?

The problem is probably that most good 3d modelers do not need your service.
So why would they register? And even pay for it? What'd their incentive be?
One would be that they can earn extra by selling models on your site. But
there is Turbosquid & co already doing this since over a decade.

There's a chicken-egg issue here: how do you get people to go to the website
with their CC ready to buy stuff from the few artists who will have registered
by then? You probably don't.

The short version is that very likely, displaying 3D models in a web browser,
even if interactively, and even if everything is looking really sexy, as it
does on your site, is not a viable business model per se. :)

Most 3d models are used in desktop apps, not on the web (even if they end up
on the web at some stage, much later). And what Turbosquid & co haven't got is
a direct channel for the stuff on their website into the content creation
apps.

So that is where you can get leverage. Write plugins for Maya, Max, XSI, Modo,
Houdini, etc. that allow browsing and loading models live into the app. As
this is quite a task, the order of developing the plugins should strictly be
by market share of these apps.

Then you need lots of free high quality models as an incentive for people to
install these plugins. I would just skim all stuff available online,
categorize it and put the best into your catalog.

That will get you traction on the customer site ("customer" here refers to
people willing to buy models from the artists who register on your site) and
then, as a result of that, you will really get artists to consider opening a
portfolio on your site (and maybe, even pay for that). You could then also
think about a business model that is purely based on taking a % of the sales
of an artist, instead of a fixed, monthly price.

The plugin would also allow inspecting models directly inside the app. If the
model is paid content, the plugin would only load 50% of the geometry until
the model is paid for. This is still plenty to assess quality.

Basically, get people to make the plugins part of their everyday workflow,
then you will get them to consider taking their CC cards out if they need to
load an asset that is paid content.

And here is a really cool feature that becomes possible through the plugins:
allow the artist to push updates of the models to the client who bought the
right to use it, right into the desktop app. Basically if I buy a model and I
need a slightly modified version and the artist agrees to do it, they can do
it live. Then you can even offer billing by the hour and take crop. etc.

Plus you give people in need of models a direct line to artists. Most of the
time when you quickly need a model, it is something specific. Even if you have
the money, you need to find someone who does it at the quality you require and
matching the style/art direction you got from your own client. How nice would
it be if one can put a placeholder bounding box in their 3d scene, attach a
description of what they need in there to it (plus maybe some Dropbox links
with art direction/images) put a price out they are willing to pay and go to
sleep. When they open the app the next day they may already have some rough
models from some artists who are bidding on it to cycle through, right in
their 3d scene.

Check out what designcrowd and similar websites offer for 2D. There's nothing
really like this for 3D. And the plugins will ensure no one can copy your
business model easily (or quickly).

On the site (and inside the plugins) you could offer a variety of services
that could be up-sold on top of the base price of the model (and the net go
straight into your pocket). Some ideas:

\- Automatically check models for manifold topology, mark models as non-
manifold if they are or allow fixing on the fly.

\- Conversion.

\-- An artist may upload a high detail NURBs model of a car but a client needs
a meshed polygonal version. You could do the meshing on-the-fly, even
supporting LOD. AYAM is an OSS NURBs modeler that uses OpenGl, so it needs to
mesh the NURBs, pinch code from there. Supporting OpenNurbs as a format should
be fine for starters.

\-- A polygon mesh with smoothing groups can be converted into a subdivision
surface with edges and vertices auto-tagged as creases and corners, based on
continuity. 3Delight for Maya uses this approach. OpenMesh, a HE data
structure lib has feature detection functionality making this stuff a few
dozen lines to implement.

\- 3D printing. This requires meshing. Both Aqsis and Pixie are OSS
micropolygon renderers that can be made to dump micropolygon grids to
watertight STL files ready to print. Get a deal going with Shapeways,
i.materialize etc. or all of them so people can order prints straight through
your website.

~~~
callil
"The problem is probably that most good 3d modelers do not need your service."

How so? Don't 3D modelers need a platform to show their work just like graphic
artists?

There is totally a place for this on the web, just because you use 3D models
on the desktop doesn't mean they dont belong on the web in interactive form.

Have you ever been on a 3D modelling community site? There are amazing models,
but you have to ask to download another artists work to really see it, and
they likely wont give it to you. Imagine if all those artists (yes there are
thousands of them) were given a platform to share their work in 3D??

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Geee
The complete result of 3D art is the rendering, not the model. 3D artists put
images in their portfolios. Not to say they might not want to share the models
too, but in that case, it's more of a "source" of the work, not a complete
work which you want to showcase in a portfolio. A single rendering might
consist of a hundreds of models, too.

For game artists or print-3D, showcasing the model itself is more relevant.

My suggestion is to allow renderings / videos too if you want it to be a
complete portfolio solution for a 3D artist. Then, let them share models,
texture shots, etc. related to the rendering.

~~~
jonemo
> The complete result of 3D art is the rendering, not the model.

Well, yeah, but who was talking about 3D art?

What you are saying is exactly what annoys me about most existing sites where
people share and/or present their 3D models: They are all primarily used by 3D
artists. Even GrabCAD which is supposedly "from engineers for engineers" is
full of 3D art which is more or less useless for any purpose other than
visualization (I think this is because the internet is the natural place for
the rendered picture to be used, while the natural place for the solid model
might be a workshop or an FEM simulation software).

Don't forget that besides visualization, solid models are also used in
fabrication, simulation, mechanical prototyping, etc! I for one welcome that
somebody tries to offer a platform not geared towards 3D visualization but
just models.

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jonemo
Sketchfab has an amazing 3D viewer technology but I think you completely miss
the point on what this technology is useful for. 3D content on the web won't
be generated through manual uploads by designers. It will be (and already is)
generated on servers from user inputs into customization tools and/or from
large amounts of data. For example, I have a website where users can create
custom 3D topographical models on the fly and I would love to offer them a
slick viewer like Sketchfab's instead of my own attempts at WebGL. But I am
not going to upload the models to Sketchfab's server and blow through your
ridiculously low storage limit. For $15 a month I could store a total of ~70
models. Considering that every user interaction generates a new model on the
fly, that wouldn't even get me through one session by one user! Even more so
because I can have a not quite as polished but free 3D viewer that is fully
customizable and hackable from other places, take for example Sculpteo's:
<http://www.sculpteo.com/en/developer/webapi/embed/viewer/>

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MikeKusold
I think you are selling yourself short by comparing Sketchfab to About.me.
About.me is a simple landing page to connect all your social networks so
people can easily find you. Sketchfab is more of a personal portfolio for 3D
Pros. By pushing the personal portfolio to the forefront, you can easily
monetize Sketchfab.

~~~
endianswap
I agree. It seems to me like better sights would be on Dribbble, but for 3D
modelers

~~~
jamesmcbennett
one more person to agree with comments, about.me is a landing page. Dribble in
3D is better.

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rgbrgb
I think you'll have a hard time getting traction unless you make these free
for artists. I'd investigate other business models. Perhaps you could come up
with a way to charge recruiters for browsing the portfolios? Perhaps an
affiliate recruiting program where you get a kickback for every artist they
find on your site would work.

~~~
jweir
Artists will pay for a good portfolio.

As long as it it offers support, good hosting, and easy to use interface.

Artists don't even need a lot of bells or whistles. Some customization can go
a long way. May want a place to show of their work without a lot of
distraction from vendor promotions or advertisements.

So, go for it, charge for your service... although is $7 a month to pay for
the service and give yourself/staff/etc a salary?

~~~
rgbrgb
>> Artists will pay for a good portfolio.

Is this the kind of portfolio an artist would pay for? I'm skeptical of this.
I know about 9 artists who have recently graduated and are doing small shows,
oddjobs, or freelance design (looks hard). All of them have created an online
presence and none of them have payed much (if anything) for it. Some learned
to program themselves, others put stuff up with templates or on free portfolio
sites. They're all quite poor. So that's a data point.

I do know one more established artist (prof. at USC) who recently paid for a
site, but I don't think she'd have been happy with something that wasn't
totally custom.

Another direction to go in with this is to create a marketplace like Etsy for
3D models. You could host portfolios for free and take a cut of transactions.

I'm very interested to know how signups are going.

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jweir
Smart, I really like out you render out the images for browsers that dont'
support WebGL. Great work. Charge more.

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ktrgardiner
Your site and product look great. But just a heads up, under the students
section you put an extra l in eligible. The padding in your search bar is also
off (at least in Safari) so Search is flush against the top instead of being
centered.

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FedericoElles
Rats! WebGL hit a snag. iWatch crashes my tab. Guess my PC is too slow for
this awesome webapp.

~~~
drawkbox
The iWatch is 200+ tris so takes a long time to load anyways. WebGL/3D is
around where mobile 3d is, safe range is up to 140-160k but for older really
under 100k total per frame is needed to perform/load reasonably well. For
mobile if you can stay below 60-80k you don't have mesh loading issues.

Hint to artists, low poly is in and will be for a long time again due to web
and mobile games. 2k for a game character is fat, 1k is usable for many
enemies to be drawn at once per frame. Show off your skills but also show off
for the markets you target, gaming is still low poly in web + mobile.

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alyx
Looks cool, but the introduction video pop-up does not work in IE 10 for me.

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eehirsch
Looks great - congrats! I'll definitely share with some peeps I know.

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kornork
What's a 3D pro? Are these models for video games, movies, makerbots?

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alexandrewinter
Site looks awesome!

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piarrech
Great project

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skurmedel
As someone that has a 3D portfolio, I think it is priced too high. But I'm not
a modeler either, for game artists it could be quite nice. But I'd be somewhat
afraid of people somehow nicking my vertices.

