Chaos Group cannibalizing it's user base

[Evan Lindsay]

I've seen more and more of my clients being sold on Cylindo these days. It's interesting to see a software company that made it's millions on selling 3D rendering software to artists, now taking those artists clients. I guess there's more money in rendering low quality furniture renderings then selling software to 3D artists? Honestly interested to know what the strategy is here?

[TomG]

Cylindo was originally a separate company, so by acquiring it, money that was originally going to another company is now going to Chaos :) Very much an anti-cannibalization. Cylindo also serves a very specific purpose, with little crossover for most of our users - I'd say primarily it is about amassing a large catalogue of images showing a large catalogue of furniture, which can then be leveraged in an online store where people go to buy that furniture - which isn't something most of users would do, create 90,000 images, 3 each of 30,000 products, with a turntable for each, and set up an online store using them. It's mechanical and not artistic work, and all about the quantities of inputs and outputs.

Cylindo does not do architectural visualization at all, nor is it so good for more specific scene setups of more specific items ("Please show our latest 3 sofas, in Scandinavian cabins that are part of a ski resort, be sure to show the skis leaning against the wall, and have large windows looking out at the mountains outside"... etc etc.)

[Juraj]

If you had the "fortune" to meet ChaosGroup CEO like I did, you would be surprised how much he values crap like that Cylindo. He thought it was revolutionary.. and that was I think 2 years ago.

Agree with your assessment fully.

[TomG]

Ultimately, Cylindo did and would still exist even if it was not part of Chaos, and would still be tempting customers into using it rather than hiring a visualizer to do the work, so that hasn't changed in any way. It's something that would be happening regardless. As noted though, it is suited for work that is at a massive scale, and not suited for work that needs the personal touch and unique presentations for a smaller number of products (again, true before, after, and whether they had joined Chaos) so there is still a market for visualizer skills. I think it is inevitable that Cylindo and others were going to provide the automation that allowed this to happen at scale and this was just going to be a shift in what work would be out there as an option to bid upon.