Anthropic Joins the Blender Development Fund as Corporate Patron

> 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

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.

Can you imagine going to a football match and second-guessing which are the players who look human, but skin-deep are actually androids made at a factory? This is what it feels like with music and literature right now with so much AI. There are some pockets where you still can say "that's human-made", like 3D-rendered feature films with some particular artistic direction. That, it seems, AI companies also want it to go the way of the dodo.

I've been using Claude with OpenSCAD to generate some simple models with repetitive geometry (a set of d8 dice with braille on them for a scrabble-like game for blind children). It's really good, though often I have to send a screenshot to Claude or describe a geometry issue.

Having more native integration into Blender, which I'm already much more familiar with, will be fantastic.

Almost every AI lab I talk to that deals with 3D has built their pipelines around Blender.

This is unsurprising as a general development other than Anthropic doesn’t have a 3D model generation framework.

I don’t think this is to create MCP servers necessarily but rather to improve the blender pipeline further.

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...

People seem not to be aware of this: https://fund.blender.org/funding-policy/

There will be community backlash. And it will not be uncalled for. Sad news.

I can imagine they would be interested in creating features to generate 3d models.

Anthropic is BLEEDING through cash as we speak while valuations soar and they have the funds to do charity?

I feel this a thinly veiled attempt at again, stealing IP.

Mixed feelings about creative work and AI, but if it wasn't for LLMs I would have chosen a different software than Blender for my hobby-level 2D animation. Made a Blender plugin w/ Claude, and it's saving me so much time (:

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.

I prefer that outcome to them acquiring OSS projects and shutting them down once the bubble collapses.

It's because LLMs will soon start building real-world objects via CAD. This is the first step. Look at things like the Adam plugin for Onshape. Works great with Opus. It built a toy car for me with one prompt.

It's only a matter of time before parametric approaches (think LaTex for CAD, ie: via a descriptor language) enable LLMs to start 3D modeling.

The press watching side of me only has questions. Why was this published by Blender and not Anthropic? What does this actually mean? That the blender team gets free claude code max subscriptions?

Any ideas why anthropic is interested in blender funding?

Anthropic right now internally (probably):

“We love art :P”

Will Blender start allowing Anthropic to train on your art automatically unless you opt-out?

This makes sense. Blender has had (non-LLM) generative features for a long time, hooking LLMs into the Python API to generate art makes sense (it's probably already done but for it to be sponsored is nice).

it would be funny if this was meant as a goodwill gesture from anthropic to counter all the recent bad press, only for it to cause even more drama

That's already blowing up on Mastodon. Blenderartist silent for now. Won't stay like that for very long.

I wonder, if Ton was involved in that decision, or if it's only Francesco. Could turn out to be a very unlucky start into the leadership role.

These AI companies need to be kept away from Open Source projects. A sad day for Blender :(

I was wondering the other day if Ai could do tedious things like retopology and figuring out effecient uv unwrapping

Also was wondering how'd it would do things like sculpting? That sounds expensive like either you send millions of polygons for the model to explore? And that ruins the context window order doesn't even fit, or your sending tons of screenshots?

Is this going to be another app that I have to make sure I opt-out of training for?

This will be a big step up from using python to generate shitty gifs

I love blender. They should get all the money they need.

So Claude will soon do 3D modelling?

I have mixed feeling about this. Guess they can need the money ... but still. Data goes to Anthropic here. It also will buy influence in some ways, I am sure about that. We could see this with rubygems.org - when shopify threatened to cut funding some months ago, suddenly chaos erupted. Money buys influence, this is easy to see how.

I hope this doesn't mean enshittification of Blender.

I'm so sick of it. I'm so fucking sick of it.

Ugh. I love Blender, it's the greatest software of all time according to myself, and I absolutely hate this and I am terrified at what it implies. If they just want name recognition ok fine, but my guess is Anthropic will want changes to Blender itself and I find that totally unacceptable.

Ah well, the online artist community is unusually principled on matters like this, especially compared to here. If they start doing shady stuff it will get forked and probably spell the end of the Blender foundation, which would still be really bad of course.

Sigh. Not a happy Tuesday.

[dead]

I see we're now entering the "Sam Bankman-Fried" stage of buying goodwill.