In December 2020 Google continued its run of abandoning support for its virtual reality (VR) initiatives by announcing that its 3D object library Poly would be shutting down in June. Which obviously made a lot of content creators who used the service since 2017 rather unhappy. Today, rival service Sketchfab has announced a new tool to transfer Poly models onto its platform.
After Google Poly’s announcement was made public Sketchfab contacted the team to find a solution for users. They came up with the Poly-to-Sketchfab Tool, a seamless method to transfer 3D models between the two platforms rather than creators having to download their entire library before 30th June 2021.
The tool works by connecting both accounts after which it then presents users with a list of models which can be transferred. Most 3D files can be copied across, only those created in Tilt Brush or Tour Creator aren’t supported. If you are a Tilt Brush users don’t forget that: “you can publish your work directly from Tilt Brush to Sketchfab using Tilt Brush’s built-in Sketchfab Exporter,” notes the company.
So hopefully that’ll make things a little easier for those artists with large Google Poly libraries. In a press release, Sketchfab also notes: “Some apps were using Poly as an integrated library of assets; Sketchfab also offers this functionality through our Download API, giving access to over 500,000 freely downloadable Creative Commons models.”
Even Tilt Brush got the chop from Google this year but was at least given a second chance to continue with its code now open source. While Google has ended official support, the XR community quickly got to work exploring the possibilities, one of the most notable was multiplayer. Thanks to work by Rendever CTO, Tom Neumann, he released MultiBrush as a free Oculus Quest app via SideQuest.
Apart from its acquisition of Owlchemy Labs (Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator), Google’s interest in VR has significantly waned considering how invested it was only a few short years ago. As Sketchfab continues to support the XR community VRFocus will keep you updated.