Interview: TurboSquid Partners with VastPark to Distribute 3D Content; Takes Aim at Virtual Worlds

TurboSquid has always been focused on marketplaces for 3D content. With more than 1.2 million members and a vast library of 3D objects, TurboSquid is now eyeing the perfect place to host that content--virtual worlds. "We’ve got marketplaces where people can embed them in their virtual worlds for developers and then, separately, for user-generated content as well because we have so many people who can build, whether it’s clothes or furniture or scenes," said CEO Matt Wisdom. "When I talk to people, particularly those who are in stealth mode, what they’re trying to do is create a great social interaction model. They don’t want to focus on the 3D quality so much as what differentiates themselves from every other 3D world. They’re looking for ways to populate the world and have storefronts."

The first such partnership, announced today, is with VastPark. Since VastPark is already aimed at making it possible for anyone to create and customize 3D virtual worlds, it's an ideal fit for the catalog of content.

"They’ve got a development app, so we’re going to integrate with that so people can drag and drop into VastPark when they’re creating," said Wisdom. "It’s just an easy interface for getting stuff in. If it’s for sale, people have to buy it, and there are some other features we’re putting in to make it easier. Ultimately where we’re trying to go is to take 3D to the consumer marketplace. We’ve done very well with sort of stock 3D and the professional marketplace. The big picture is when regular consumers are buying 3D, whether it’s clothes for their avatar or avatars or any representation they want to have online. We’re trying to connect the consumers to the artists in the virtual worlds."

VastPark has been adding middleware providers left-and-right in the past month, a process CEO Bruce Joy is fond of. His goal is to simply occupy the niche of the platform creator while building an ecosystem where others can fill the remaining needs.

"At the moment it’s pretty damn broad," Joy said of his niche, "because there are so many things that are missing form the overall ecology and technology stack from the virtual Web. As that Web matures, we’ll be looking to rely on partners more and more to give us more niche products to do more and more than we could on our own."

It's an approach TurboSquid is fond of as well. While its strengths lie in mangaging marketplaces and content, others' lie in designing game interaction and chat.

"There are a whole different set of issues," explained Wisdom. "It’s a different kind of management. For a lot of people, we’re saying, 'Focus your expertise on the world itself.' We can help by managing the market place and doing a revenue share with the owner of the virtual world so they can have the marketplace for free and share in the proceeds. You can have all the tech and access to our community and on the backend, we’ll mange that stuff. If they can get people who want to be in the world, we’ll help."

Wisdom says TurboSquid has several more deals on the table, though many are with virtual worlds that are still in stealth mode. Others, though, should be announcing this week at the conference. And, while he couldn't name names, Wisdom says the partners are as diverse as could be.

"It runs the gamut," he said. "The consistency is in people who want to have real 3D interaction. That’s what’s driving them. Sometimes they come from without the 3D industry. What’s been a difficult point for our industry is that it’s hard to do 3D. They’re digging in and finding it more laborious than they expected. That’s a problem that we’re enthusiastically trying to solve."

The partnerships also build in the possibility of seeing standards develop across virtual worlds sooner rather than later. All of TurboSquid's models are designed in standard 3D authoring tools, and can be taken any where. There's been friction over standards, but Wisdom thinks virtual worlds are finally presenting the ideal market for 3D objects.

"The environment is finally right for the 3D industry to go big in the way that digital photographs or video did on YouTube," he said. "Users can finally interact with the objects—they don’t want to get bogged down in the technical minutiae, but they want the fun in interacting in 3D. I think, in general, the 3D industry is going to have some rapid growth as we’ve seen in the photography industry as well as video. It’s the democratization of the medium."

TurboSquid is exhibiting at Virtual Worlds 20008, Booth 42