Three.js Interview: Online 3D Modeling and Rendering With Clara.io

http://learningthreejs.com/blog/2014/05/07/threejs-interview-online-3d-modeling-and-rendering-with-claraio/

by bhouston • 12 years ago

36 14 12 years ago

fulafel• 12 years ago

tl;dw - "Google Docs for 3D models", Web-based 3D modeling app/service with concurrent editing and lots of nice features. Uses Three.js internally but also good for producing assets for Three.js apps.

I hope this also advances Three.js for content production, and helps tilt the scale in the open web apps/libs direction (vs insulated Unity+emscripten and Unreal+emscripten blobs).

bhouston6• 12 years ago

Nice summary. Thanks!

It does both 3D modeling and rendering.

Feature summary on landing page: http://Clara.io

Example scenes: http://Clara.io/library

User base: +50,000

Status: Pre-release, open beta started in November 2013

Funding: Self-funded with one angel (former Autodesk SVP in charge of Maya, 3DS Max, Softimage -- desktop equivalents.)

fieldforceapp• 12 years ago

Really solid work, I was surprised to see how complete this is, especially compared to Blender. I need to render some scenes soon, importing existing OBJ's and adding new materials. I was going to be using Blender, I'll first give clara.io a try!

One question, sent a ticket already but wouldn't mind an HN bump... I couldn't get 'Render > Render Current Pass' menu option to show? Kinda miss that big green "render now" button.

doczoidberg3• 12 years ago

I can't find any details about prices? All I could find was that it is freemium.

bhouston6• 12 years ago

We do not yet have prices. We have designed this to be a low cost service though.

doczoidberg3• 12 years ago

are modeling features like boolean operations calculated on server or client?

jianshen2• 12 years ago

Impressive work!

I'd love to see Google Doc's revision history applied here so I don't have to worry so much about losing my work.

As a coder who does 3d modeling, I've always been irked by the lack of version control in the modeling world (Airplane_013a.mel - what was in this file?). Git worked ok and github is doing some interesting stuff with STL file previews but it's still very disruptive to the creative flow. Again I'm super impressed and this is just a suggestion that might bring us 3d modelers out of the dark ages of file management.

bhouston6• 12 years ago

I'd love to see Google Doc's revision history applied here so I don't have to worry so much about losing my work.

We store all changes as diffs. :)

http://clara.io/learn/user-guide/basics/interface_overview/h...

Technically we can restore any version of the file that you want or tag revisions (like you can tag code revisions in Git.) We have not yet exposed this in the UI though.

jianshen2• 12 years ago

Fantastic! I did a quick one over of the docs but didn't think to look there.

msane• 12 years ago

If there's anyone from Exocortex here -- I'm extremely interested in the diff based versioning system you guys have incorporated. Was it done entirely in-house or is it based on any existing tools?

Amazing work.

bhouston6• 12 years ago

I'm here. :) It is a fully custom system. Ping me at ben@exocortex.com if you want to chat more.

Three.js Interview: Online 3D Modeling and Rendering With Clara.io

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