Getting one of the free (or insanely cheap) game engines is definitely one of the best options. 3DO is free but still actively in heavy development http://quixel.se/dev/3do
It's not a realtime renderer, but the Cycles renderer that ships with Blender is physically-based if you set it up right and the render quality is quite high.
Sketchfab should-although If I remember right it was a pain for me to personally get it working. Others I believe it was simple. Been a while since I uploaded to Sketchfab though.
I can't help but feel, as useful as Sketchfab is for online presentation, would it not be a better use of someone's time to just get your hands dirty with an existing game engine since game developers use game engines most of the time?
Does Sketchfab support multiple materials/texture sheets ?
Yup, you have an editor to set all that up. Only thing is for stuff with alpha you need to separate the individual objects in your project to prevent alpha sorting issues.
I'd also recommend blender game engine provided your model doesn't use alpha channels at all. You have a lot of great stuff like ramp shaders and nodes you can use.
I like it best for more cartoony or cell shaded stuff. I've seen other people do other stuff too.
But alpha sorting is absolutely terrible in blender.
May I ask the reason why you are looking for an alternative ? Toolbag2 is pretty much the best at what it does and is not that expensive, so surely enough there is a specific missing feature that you are looking for. Pointing it out would help us making relevant recommendations.
May I ask the reason why you are looking for an alternative ? Toolbag2 is pretty much the best at what it does, so surely enough there is a specific missing feature that you are looking for. Pointing it out would help us making relevant recommendations.
It would also help us make Toolbag a better application
Considering the "free" in OP's post I should think that the problem is simply that Toolbag 2 costs money. Not much you can do about that.
Just pick up Unity, CryEngine or UE4. Toolbag2 is basically just a real-time engine aimed at simplifying final presentation work anyways. You'll have to jump through a few hoops and learn to set up nice shaders to get stuff looking good, but you'll have to do that if you get an industry job anyway, so think of it as practice.
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Cryengine 3.5
Unity3D
UE4 is only $20 for a one-time, unpdatable buy, but comes with everything. Source code, etc. And a solid basic renderer.
Its shadowing and post processing aren't as well fleshed out as Marmoset's, but it's serviceable.
Correction: I did use 3DO when the programe used to open.
You may have to be more patient with 3DO because often versions of the current lineup for Quixel products are regularly broken in some versions.
Yup, you have an editor to set all that up. Only thing is for stuff with alpha you need to separate the individual objects in your project to prevent alpha sorting issues.
I'd also recommend blender game engine provided your model doesn't use alpha channels at all. You have a lot of great stuff like ramp shaders and nodes you can use.
I like it best for more cartoony or cell shaded stuff. I've seen other people do other stuff too.
But alpha sorting is absolutely terrible in blender.
It would also help us make Toolbag a better application
Just pick up Unity, CryEngine or UE4. Toolbag2 is basically just a real-time engine aimed at simplifying final presentation work anyways. You'll have to jump through a few hoops and learn to set up nice shaders to get stuff looking good, but you'll have to do that if you get an industry job anyway, so think of it as practice.