Exocortex Clara.io: Next-gen web-based 3D creation

[Hirazi Blue]

Exocortex announced (as in: I got a mail today) the beta for Clara.io,

our next-generation 3D content creation tool that runs within the web browser using commodity technologies

Clara.io is (...) not a single purpose application, it isn't just a single renderer or a layout tool, it is a modern integrated 3D content creation tool built around an extensible scripting and plugin model. By adopting Clara.io, you are not giving up the power and freedom that you were used to on the desktop, rather you are just gaining additional functionality and convenience

(Quoted from here, go there to read more... This appears to be the dedicated website)

[bhouston]

Hey thanks for sharing!

Apply for the beta here: http://clara.io

The long explanation of what Clara.io can be found on the Exocortex blog:
http://exocortex.com/blog/introducing_claraio

Here is what Clara.io looks like this morning when I took these screenshots:




Best regards,
Ben Houston

[Bullit]

Without a video showing from how to make a teapot to how to model or animate,render, very few will INVEST their time trying it.

[bhouston]

Without a video showing from how to make a teapot to how to model or animate,render, very few will INVEST their time trying it.

We have a lot of tutorials coming soon. We'll post them on vimeo. I'll link them here when that happens, at least the first set.

[dwigfor]

Hi Ben. Are you going to be exhibiting @ Siggraph/Anaheim?

[bhouston]

For sure, we have a booth as part of the Ontario Pavillion on the show floor. Drop by!

[Rork]

Hi Ben,

Will this add to the things FabricEngine and Thiago is doing with his online renderer/scenebuilder, or is this something completely different in that order?
Also, what about rendering? Will there be 3rd party support? And how will this be implemented?

How will licensing and such be implemented?

Sorry if this is somehow obviously clear in the press release...

[bhouston]

We will be announcing rendering options in the next two months and I think most people will really like them.

Licensing is going to be cheap compared to desktop packages. There will be a free tier with some limites, and then the next tier up will be likely around $10 a month. For those with a lot of rendering, it will have to be more expensive because that costs us a lot of money to offer than. This will be firmed up by the end of beta. All pricing will be per month or per year subscriptions.

We love the Fabric Engine guys but right now there is no plans for integration.

Best regards,
-ben

[Hirazi Blue]

As I do my internet stuff on the cheapest possible internet "scheme", I was wondering how bandwidth would factor in satisfactory usage of Clara.io. In other words: is it pointless to even try below a certain bandwidth and what would you say the limit is?

[bhouston]

Bandwidth is important if you have complex scenes. If you are dealing with low poly models then slow Internet is okay. I would recommend 6mbps or better download speed. If you want to upload large models and textures to Clara.io faster upload speed would be convenient. So faster Internet is better but it should work on low end broadband at 6mbps down/0.5Mbps up.

[Hirazi Blue]

Thanks. I just applied for the beta as that's probably the best way to find out. Another question that's been on my mind: as Clara.io has the potential to become something big, would this mean Clara.io will become your new core business or will it "alway" remain "just" one of the projects/products?

[bhouston]

We are continuing to release our desktop-based products. Remember that we have had a team working on Clara for two years now. During that time we have continued to release updates to Crate (about 100 updates), Fury (~25 updates), Momentum (3.3-3.11 updates with 4 on the way), Species (all updates, include the initial release), Implosia (which is becoming part of M4, in beta.) The only tool that hasn't been updated recently is SlipstreamVX but even that we have been investing research dollars to push the core algorithms further, see this from last week: https://vimeo.com/69586020 So we will continue to support our desktop-based products, and we have new ones coming out as well, stay tuned!

The biggest bottleneck though in Exocortex is our promotional bandwidth, not our development abilities. We can not really effectively handle the marketing/promotion/launch more than one product a month with our current structure, so we need to figure out how to be more effective in that sense. This bottleneck is causing product launch delays in the last little while (M4 specifically), but hopefully we can solve this soon.

[Nox]

So, what the point of this if there is Softimage already?

[SamHowell]

So, what the point of this if there is Softimage already?

Flexibility. Something Autodesk licensing and desktop applications do not give you. Only pay for what you need, when you need it.

[luceric]

So, what the point of this if there is Softimage already?

Flexibility. Something Autodesk licensing and desktop applications do not give you. Only pay for what you need, when you need it.

yeah well, you could also get blender for free, or rent houdini. In either case, it's not softimage or maya, it's another software. once you're using another software, then that opens up using any other software.

[SamHowell]

Say I take on a short term job.

I hire 5 freelancers to help me acheive this. They all need a high spec computer to work on and a desk in an air conditioned office to sit at running some desktop software that has to be paid for in advance. While we work, all of the assets and scene files need to be saved somewhere. When the time comes to render we need a farm (also air conditioned) to get the job out the door in time. Once the job is over I am left with 5 computers, 5 office spaces, 5 software licenses along with server and render farm equipment. I now have to pay to maintain all of this until the next job comes in that requires 5 freelancers, potentially months in the future or never at all.

An alternative could be. I hire 5 freelancers, rent a web based service for a month. They all work from home using their average, inexpensive laptops. Our assets are saved on the cloud, our rendering is done through the cloud. We all colaborate simultaneously on our scenes. The job is finished and delivered. My 3d web based service rental expires. I invoice the client and wait for the money to appear in my account. I walk away with nothing to maintain or pay for until the next job comes along.

Flexibility