VRto.me released

[Sbrusse]

I know that some of you are waiting for a long time for this, so :
I’m proud to announce the release of my new online tool to convert Cubemaps to panorama tours : www.vrto.me
It works great with V-Ray, Corona, Octane, FStorm and other renderers that support cubemaps.


Christopher Nichols from CG Labs has been kind enough to create a tutorial showing how it works :

https://labs.chaosgroup.com/index.ph...ubemaps-in-vr/


I'm thinking of creating a gallery section, so if you'd like to get in there, just let me know, I'll send you out free credits to convert them.


Happy rendering!
Stan

[jacksc02]

Nice work Stan.
I signed up today and had a play with it and it works nicely.

[armilla]

Great job, looking forward to giving it a try.

[NicoC]

I've seen that this morning on CGPress - looks amazing !! bravo !
Only pricing seems a bit exaggerated, really ... I think you should think again about your pricing policy, but that's just my opinion. I'll give a try for sure, but I'll stick to KRPano for a while I guess

[Sbrusse]

Well spotted, I didn't even knew they shares it

Thanks for your feedback about pricing, I'll take that into consideration and think about it.

Cheers

[Neilg]

And like a week after we bought panotour pro... damn.
looks like a great tool!

[VelvetElvis]

I agree that pricing and the credits system could be a bit more refined or maybe an in between 10 and 50 credit pack added. But then again, for the amount of automation this tool provides, it's a pretty good value for your dollar. I do like the fact that once you unlock, you have to use credits to update it. It really forces people to think twice about those "oh I forget to tell you to change this" comments.

[Nicinus]

The problem is that it will take a lot of experimentation and some portfolio building before I could start charging efficiently for this I feel, so it will have a significant upstart cost. Perhaps offer a 10 pack free when you sign up? If it is good you will recoup this cost many times with repeat customers. If I understand it correct, having a space with hotspots for five rooms would mean a cost of 250 Euros?

[Sbrusse]

I've build VRto.me with full features available for any user, for free.
This means that any user can create as much projects as he want and upload and convert as many cubemaps as he want, create hotspots and share the projects.


IE : You could work for 2 months on a project and make 10 revisions every day and still view and share your work in progress to your client for free.


The only limitation is the waterwark.


If you had a space with 5 rooms (cubemaps) this means you will need 5 credits to unlock the project. I'd think that if that was the case, the user would buy a 299€ to get 10 credits. It's only 50€ more but you have double credits, so you will have 5 to use on any other project, without time limitation. This means you will have unlocked that project for 150€. If you think this is a workflow that works well for you and your client like it, the 50 credit bundle offers a even bigger discount so convert a cubemap will cost as low as 20€.


I don't think that a 10 pack for free when signing up is a good idea, this might lead to users creating mutiple accounts only to enjoy the free credits and I'll have to put measures and checks in place to avoid abuse. Being able to work and progress through the project without any limitation (beside the watermark) and only pay when you want to unlock is for me the best scenario for the end user. At least, that's how I would have wanted to have the service working if I was a freelancer or company that would use the service.


Hope this make sense,
Thanks
Stan

[Nicinus]

Hi Stan,

Didn't see the part with the watermark, that helps depending how intrusive that watermark is. I couldn't find any examples of this, nor any mention of it on the site?

Still think the price is a bit steep for my case but I guess it's the same for all software, for a freelancer 3ds Max is a notable cost but for a big firm peanuts. Didn't quite get how a 10 credits for 300 Euros could end up being 20 per credit?

If people have to sign up with their credit cards you would probably eliminate people creating multiple accounts, so still think that could be an idea, but again that depends on how intrusive that watermark is.

Will definitely look into it though..

[squintnic]

i agree its too pricey for the quality of product being delivered - 50 euro for 1 panorama that lives on a 'VRtome' url is not good value

i would consider making the service free until you have more functionality and a more polished site

[NicoC]

Sorry Stan, while I understand your arguments, I still think it's way too pricey or simply that the way credits are handled aren't realistic. I'll give you a simple example: let's say I need to calculate hires panos with a renderfarm, that would cost less than converting the rendered cubemap using VRTo.me, though a whole different uphill investment ... I'm not saying your system is bad, not all, to be honest it seems pretty neat - I'm just one of those thinking your pricing is outdated, from my point of view. That's a pity.
I guess that's an option you've thought about: what about a monthly subscription, you can stop anytime ? various subscriptions with various conversion options, that could be adapted to everyone's needs ? just an idea though, it's your business after all

[Sbrusse]

Thanks for your feedback guys, really appreciate.

The price tag was a hard one me, and it still is.
I understand your arguments.

Although I know the whole industry goes with a subscription base model, I didn't though it would be the best scenario for the user. But I'm happy to introduce that option and have two models, maybe that would be better for the user, be able to choose between normal pay upfront and subscription model.

Just a thought :
What happens if the user un-subscribe? Should I kill all the links? Meaning that the 15 clients that have their tour embedded on their site will be unavailable?
Should I keep the links but just not the ability to convert the tour without watermark?
If I do subscriptions with different steps would subscription A give you 2 conversion, subscription B 5 and C 10? So you would be able to do 2-5 or 10 every month, what happens if you need to do 15 or 7, will you jump around through subscriptions? or not be able to convert them at all? Or add a unlimited subscription who would be expensive?
I just hear a lot of people saying that they hate subscription because it's better if you want to use the product for x months, but in the long run you'll loose.
I don't know, It just make more sense to know upfront what your budget will be and get it accordingly to your client, and if you don't use the service for 6 months, then you don't pay, but I'll definitely think about a subscription base model.

Can I ask what you guys would think the service should be priced at? Both for a new subscription model and for upfront payments?

Thanks a lot for your time and feedback,
Stan

[AlexP]

We just finished a project that included a panotour with 40 panos.

This was running for months, so there were lots of meetings between designer and their clients showing the pano etc. So it would have needed to to be "final" everytime. If I understand the pricing this would have cost a grand every update?

Additionally, I wouldnt want this hosted on any website other than our own.

I think there should be the option just to have the conversion/creation done for you that I can then download and host on another website potentially.

Maybe provide an offline version, a standalone app, for one off purchase, no hosting.

Tricky one.

Personally not a fan of any "credit" based payment model.

[VelvetElvis]

Big items for us would be to have the ability to create/link a custom URL to the tour. Most of our clients would want this tour to live within their site and would immediately reject any notion of a non-branded URL. I fully support the idea of having access to the created web files to do with as we please, even if that means a bit more cost for us.

It is a good point about if you are on a subscription based service and you cancel. In reality, your projects should go away as well and that doesn't work well for most of us. We would have to roll the subscription cost to the client so they can keep their content online when we as visualizers have ceased working on the project. That puts us in the middle man position.

Outside of the problems with piracy, this may be a good reason to give the option to release this as a stand alone (if all possible) app with a subscription cost. If I cancel my Adobe subscription, I don't lose all of my files I created. I just lose Photoshop and the ability to edit them.

There is no real easy answer for this but I do appreciate you taking the time to hear everyone's concerns.