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Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

blender.org

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Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already an MCP for it, saw a post on LinkedIn the other day about it. Not sure if this one was the one I saw, but Google gave me this one. You could use Claude Code to build things with Blender. https://blender-mcp.com/

You don't even need that, if your agent/harness can evaluate Python, it can trivially access the API through there and "import" basically.

This is what I do. It’s been really helpful for taking existing FBX files and handing them off to the agent + Python Blender API to analyze the geometry, convert to GLBs, etc.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (I) need that. "Some software" is approaching levels of complexity where, perhaps, it gets to a point where a human is barely able to even use it. At the same time (brave new world) LLM assisted software opens up the possibility of levels of complexity we would not have considered before.

I disagree that anyone should need LLMs for Blender, for example, because Blender is designed by people to be understood and used by people, even if it requires a learning curve. It sounds a bit dangerous to build new things we don't understand, or worse, reduce our understanding of what we currently use because (only after studying our use of the same technology) an LLM apears able to replicate it, mostly. I'm remin…

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Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#124
post #10

> improve foundational features like the Blender Python API, which enables developers and artists alike So they want claude to be able to talk to blender

There is already a Blender MCP. It works-ish! But could be a lot better in understanding 3D space. As an amateur this is really exciting - but not sure about folks that are real pros at this stuff.

I'm not a pro, but I've been unimpressed by LLMs driving blender. Was left unexcited. Must be torture for professional to read this thread.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#125
post #56
post #43

Not sure why this is getting backlash. Just look at https://fund.blender.org . Other corporate sponsors are Google, Meta, Nvidia, Netflix, even Adidas. This just means more support for a major OSS project.

A lot of those companies likely sponsor it because they use it themselves, and actively benefit from its continued development. The incentives are at least somewhat aligned. I doubt Anthropic has much use for such a tool internally. They're sponsoring it because they want to inject their slop into it and replace the people who do use it.

Unrelated but what do you all get from this endless speculation about others motives?

To me it just comes across like the stereotype of a lonely house wife peaking through the blinds judging the neighbors.

This forum is just as absurd as Reddit but in a subtle way; politically correct language without the zany memes but nonetheless absurd sense of self righteousness and importance and the validity of endless unsubstantiated assertions and qualifications.

As if not posting about Harambe affords legitimacy while posting what boils down to intrusive thoughts about people and motives y'all are removed from.

The nostalgia fueled appeals to preserve your grasp of reality specifically are just a modern conservatism. Time moves on and has as little obligation to stand still for HN doomers as it does adherents of traditional religions, contemporary American capitalism .

The horse and buggy and rotary phone and other engineers screwed out of careers by off shoring playing a tiny violin for script kiddies who grew up to become expert Python and DevOps engineers.

Get over yourself. Your efforts are a drop in the ocean of human effort. Ffs this comes off as some fine whine.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#126
post #43

Not sure why this is getting backlash. Just look at https://fund.blender.org . Other corporate sponsors are Google, Meta, Nvidia, Netflix, even Adidas. This just means more support for a major OSS project.

Blender didn't have support from big tech for decades and has flourished. It's now on par with top of the line proprietary 3d software.

The upside is meaningless compared to what's at risk when for-profit grows influence.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly I'm out of the loop, why would it not be uncalled for?

Because someone might argue blender is taking funding from an entity that wants to make proficient blender users obsolete.

Or it might allow proficient blender users to become more productive, resulting in higher detailed scenes for the same budget.

We'll see how it shakes out. As a non-proficient Blender user, I'm kinda keen on this since I have had a lot of ideas that I haven't been able to realize in Blender.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're sponsoring it because they want to inject their slop into it and replace the people who do use it. Oh, noes, the horrors of democratising access to an expert tool. What will onshape do now, that the free one is accessible to oom more regular people that could use a 3d shape but don't have the time to learn a very complicated yet powerful tool? I guess people have said the same about game engines / coding to…

It's not democratising access to an expert tool, it's devaluing the skill, expertise, and hard work required to create art. edit: I seem to be rate limited and unable to reply? I'll paste it here: I'm sorry but I don't agree. People care about art when it is extraordinary, in the same way people watch professional sport because it is extraordinary, or they watch cooking shows because it's extraordinary. What you call…

By that logic, Blender shouldn't exist because it devalues the skill of hand animated art.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#129
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not democratising access to an expert tool, it's devaluing the skill, expertise, and hard work required to create art. edit: I seem to be rate limited and unable to reply? I'll paste it here: I'm sorry but I don't agree. People care about art when it is extraordinary, in the same way people watch professional sport because it is extraordinary, or they watch cooking shows because it's extraordinary. What you call…

Sorry, this is not a good argument. It's sad that some skills are devalued when so many have invested years into them, but it is a net win when more people can create something without having to become an expert. Experts don't deserve to have a moat built around them. I say this as a software engineer with 16yoe who is dealing with the same challenges.

Please explain how this is a net win beyond the extremely narrow-minded belief that more equals better.

Do you believe it's a good thing that all software is becoming noticeably lower quality? Do you believe it's a good thing that open source is on its death bed now that licenses don't mean anything and popular projects are drowning under AI generated PR spam? Even here on HN, Show HN is effectively dead as almost every single submission is some boring garbage generated in 30 minutes that nobody cares about, not even the person who submitted it.

Experts don't need to have a moat built around them, because they build their own moats with their skills and efforts. Just because you get jealous and feel entitled to the fruits of the experts' labor while being unwilling to put in the same work does not mean you have the right to steal their work and mix it up in a computer algorithm so you can later claim it as yours.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes the blender API feels like it sits on top of the GUI rather than the GUI on top of the API. When you are writing scripts in the blender api you basically mechanically describe the steps you would take in the UI. It can be a little fragile at times. I've used Claude to write some blender scripts and it's an excellent use case. I look forward to even better claude/blender interaction based on this annonuncement.

I've also used genAI to write script. It works splendid up to a point, then there is absolutely no way to move the needle further. And it's not even close to renders I would ever publish. That being said, it's about the same for the code it produces for non purely creative things, but for artistic work, I doubt an LLM in between gives any gain. After all, we do have an interface. A human interface.

Yeah I am using blender to generate models for 3d printing - no rendering and Claude doesn't have to do anything artistic for my use case.
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