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Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

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Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#141

Post by hbosch »

slopinthebag wrote: post #93
NitpickLawyer wrote: post #75

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…

If I download Blender today, as a true beginner, is what I make extraordinary? If it's not, does that mean I am not allowed to use Blender? What if I want to use Blender and I am not interested in making anything extraordinary? What if I want to use Blender to make a stupid little iPhone game that no one will ever play? Is that considered extraordinary, or not? What is this criteria?

The truth is, the vast majority of art is not extraordinary, whether it comes from a canvas, a typewriter, Photoshop, or Blender. That is as true for AI as it is for humans. Likewise, the vast majority of people who kick a soccer ball will never be extraordinary soccer players.

I firmly believe that tools which enable people to get closer to their goals are always a good thing. The concept of what makes something "extraordinary" does not come from the maker, or the tool, but from the beholder. It is the audience's job to discern what is and isn't "extraordinary", not the makers'.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#142

Post by ecshafer »

CSMastermind wrote: post #140
ecshafer wrote: post #139

Has anyone found a really good ai modeling and animation workflow? Ive tried a few like Meshy which work but I am not super happy with the results.

No it's a big area of opportunity right now. All the existing solutions are pretty rough.

The latest chatgpt Image generation model is producing really nice results for turning sprites into sprite animations. Which is something a year ago felt impossible to get right. But 3d has been impossible for me to get anything good.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#143

Post by jonas21 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #126
bicx wrote: 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.

Google has been supporting Blender for over 20 years, initially through Summer of Code [1, 2], and also via corporate sponsorship once Blender started offering it.

And I'm pretty sure I've seen most of the other big names in tech on the sponsors page for many years now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code

[2] https://code.blender.org/2011/04/google-summer-of-code-2011-...

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#144

Post by thot_experiment »

modeless wrote: post #134
SyneRyder wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic just posted a video 1 hour ago of their own official MCP integration with Blender: https://youtu.be/LZMWsZbZU5w

Artists mad about AI art ought to welcome this. This is about making art tools better, instead of replacing them entirely. The alternative to this is AI just generating art directly and making tools like Blender obsolete.

[flagged]

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#145

Post by hbosch »

hirako2000 wrote: post #132
bicx wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The concerns are: proliferation of slop, en masse. prosperity of artists who live off their work to be rendered impossible. It's already quite dire for them. The upside? A new generation of content creator who may profit from automation. We never had problems creating art. In fact, what's artistic is relative to the effort involved in the creation process; also, access to technology available at the time. To me the a…

Unity enabled a flood of slop games long ago. Dreamweaver enabled countless slop websites. Photoshop delivered us heaps of slop images. Amazon delivers thousands of slop products from slop manufacturers every day.

The slop isn't coming, it arrived decades ago. The Pandora's box of slop is already open. Maybe AI widens the aperture, but if you cannot handle the discernment required to separate slop from something useful or meaningful, that is your problem.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#146

Post by ollin »

teeray wrote: post #135
bicx wrote: 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.

Because Blender is a tool for making art and Anthropic makes tools for stealing art

AFAIK Anthropic hasn't built any image or video generation tools yet, just text/code generation. OpenAI/Google/xAI all built image/video generation teams though so it may only be a matter of time.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#147

Post by arjie »

I'm thrilled for the world where I can drive more things with an LLM. The big limiting factor for me for little home improvement things was that I'm not very good at modeling so I have to get my wife to go do things for me. That's fine, she's happy to do it, but sometimes you kind of just have to try yourself to see what you're really looking to do.

Recently I've been using Claude Code with `build123d`[0] and it's pretty good, but my wife uses Blender so it would be cool to come up with something at least halfway decent and then have her clean it up.

0: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Blog/2026-04-24/Modeling_Bet...

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#148

Post by [deleted] »

adfm wrote: post #138
throw_m239339 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blender isn't really made for CAD at all, although there are few CAD plugins. It's more for artistic modelling like MAYA or Cinema3D. There already are LLM plugins for Blenders and prompt integration for model generation, rigging and co.

MAYA has extensive NURBS tools, which means it can import and export CAD data natively. While Blender does support basic NURBS geometry, it lacks tooling to fully support it. If the idea is to support Blender for use with “Digital Twins” or “World Models” then the first step is to start with accurate geometry. Anything less is slop.

[deleted]

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#149

Post by prox »

mossTechnician wrote: post #104
JKCalhoun wrote: post #88

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…

It also sounds like people with little ability can use this argument as a way to say “look how difficult this is for humans”

While it’s just a “you” problem. Some folks have better skills, knowledge and comfort with difficult subjects. And that’s fine.

Re: Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

#150

Post by dilDDoS »

augment_me wrote: post #117
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I care deeply. It is not single-handedly going to destroy humanity. However, we are clearly on a course where people are more isolated, less challenged, less social, and very very very unhappy. Music is one of those things that can really bring people together. If we flood the zone with AI music (or any other art form) we will slowly edge out the humans who are doing that. That is less new music. Less chances to come…

Every generation has a new baseline. The younger generation will not be able to imagine having anything other than doctors and psychologists in the phone, and they are content with it because it's all they know. Social media might be all the social connection they have, and that will be the best thing where they will have the best experiences, they won't know another baseline. Eventually maybe the best experiences wi…

> Eventually maybe the best experiences will be had with digital companions, etc.

Obviously I can't speak for all of Gen Z (and I realize we're no longer "the younger generation"), but my friends and I don't want any part of this, and feel optimistic rather than bitter that things won't go the way you're describing. I seldom meet anyone in my age group that isn't talking about moving away from social media, cancelling software subscriptions, all of the things that millenials and Gen X seem to be so excited to continue building and promoting.

Even at my workplace the "older" people are the ones that are excited about stuff like AI jazz remixes of rap songs and AI generated short films, while literally everyone else under 30 finds it pretty cringe and makes fun of them in DMs.

So all that to say, I disagree with your outlook, but I guess time will tell.

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