The new version of BlenderGPT (lets call this v2) doesn't use an any autoregressive token prediction for the actual mesh generation part, so I understand why it sounds dishonest. I really just chose to stick with the name because artists really didn't seem to care about how the meshes are generated, and the term GPT became closely associated with AI.

As for the technical stuff, I've been working on BlenderGPT v2 for the past several months, and until a week ago, i had been using a custom pipeline I built borrowing and re-implementing bits of Unique3D (https://wukailu.github.io/Unique3D/) and combining it with optimized models (flow matching diffusion models etc) for intermediate steps (text to image generation). My optimizations reduced inference time from >2 minutes to only about 20 seconds. This is the model used in this demo i shared: https://x.com/gd3kr/status/1853645054721606100

And then Microsoft released Trellis (https://github.com/microsoft/TRELLIS), and it seemed to leapfrog my model's capabilities on most things. Integrating it into the pipeline wasn't too hard and so I went forward with it.

All of this is just to say that there really was a lot of effort put into the core pipeline, and the landing page was mostly an afterthought. Actively working on a more comprehensive one that covers all the points I talked about.

While recognizing your earlier complaint of not having details of how it works, is there some reason to think it doesn't work using a generative pre-trained transformer? If we had to make an assumption about how it works, that would be my assumption. It is the go-to tool for these types of problems.

So we don't get another Theranos grift if this eventually raises money from private investors?

Plus, many are probably tired of seeing the same thing being made repeatedly that just proxys requests to chatgpt and makes them look pretty.

The question was: > why does it matter how it works?

and that's all my comment was intended to answer. Many people here are interested both in the idea of doing something enough to upvote AND are curious how something works. We're not necessarily just consoomers, we're often interested in details, but if I was buying something and wanted to know why I should, the maker should probably be able to answer why their thing is special; in this case, I'm just saying that people on HN are generally interested in how things work.

But you specifically said that without such an explanation, products should "go to Reddit" (which presumably means, they don't belong on HN). I'll leave whether that's a "dismissal of someone's work" or not up to you, but all I'm saying is: it's evident via voting that many HNers find BlenderGPT, a tech product, interesting, even with the lack of that explanation. And so BlenderGPT does not need to "go to Reddit".

I didn't imply anything about BlenderGPT at all, I just responded to a comment. Reddit is both an advertising platform for products of all kinds, and a conversation platform for broader categories of audiences, whereas SHOW HN is like a "here's my project/product, I hope you find it interesting, and here's a chance to ask me about it". If someone posts a Show HN, it's fair assume that if people find it interesting, they'll ask how it works, because we're going to be curious, and if a person is hypothetically not prepared for that, Show HN might not be the best place to post it. I didn't say any of that was true or false regarding BlenderGPT, it was just a general remark.

I do agree that I (and most HNers) find explanations of inner workings interesting in Show HN (or anything on HN).

It's hackernews, not aliexpress

However, it's also a fair question on Hacker News. Again, fair if they chose not to answer it.. but many people here are programmers.

Since they explained that they used an open source model and system https://github.com/Microsoft/TRELLIS, it will be possible for other developers who want to start similar businesses to launch basic competitors within a week or so, if they are ambitious about it.

I spent about 10 minutes with my agent running Claude 3.5 Sonnet New and generated most of the core code already: https://github.com/runvnc/img2blender

Although I haven't tested that and don't actually know if it will work.

I first asked it to generate "The last MC left" and it crested a 3rd model of a microphone.

Not winning any awards, but it's a decent model I could imagine a professional using as a template ( also works for props in the background).

The I asked it to generate "Heavy D and the Boy's"( RIP to Heavy D) and it tried to generate models of a rap group, the face textures aren't great.

Maybe add a disclaimer saying what you generate well and what you don't. Looks like a cool prototyping tool. Thank you for sharing

I sat for too long trying to rationalize how the cresting of a wave became a synonym/analogous for “produce”, before I realized it was just a simple misspelling (or autocorrect) of “created”.

It kinda works honestly, I’ve seen far worse deliberate turns of phrase.

Also, I'm curious on how this works? It appears that when you use a text prompt it first generates an image thumbnail of the model. Is it first creating an image from propmpt and then running this image to create the 3D model?

It's exciting to think about everything that's going to become possible in the coming years.

I made a thing, here's the prompt:

coffee mug with "I AM THE BOSS" written very large and horizontally on the side. Cup must hold 75 cl of liquid.

Funny thing: the tiny icon has the correct words, but the final object has something unreadable on the side.

Very nice work anyhow!

Even if "Blender" wasn't an officially trademarked name (which it is, in both the US and EU), standing on the shoulders of Open Source also means respecting their rules when it comes to using a project's name to market your own creation.

(Unless you asked for, and received, permission of course. In which case that's something you'll want to mention on the landing page so folks know you did the right thing)

[1] https://www.blender.org/about/logo/#trademark

This will need to do the same.

It seems like you're doing a great job, and these are some low hanging fruit you can address just to make sure you're not violating trademark law.

GPT and Blender are both generic terms, unless the combination is already being used or is registered then it appears - and of course this is not legal advice - that there is no infringement.

Indeed I think registration of GPT before USPTO has been refused because it is generic.

You might be breaching contract, assuming you're using ChatGPT behind the scenes, no idea; in theory they could require you not to use GPT in your product name.

Of course, being in the right is not enough. Companies/organisations can still go after you.

> Blender has been registered as a trademark by Blender Foundation in USA and EU. It has been used by Blender Foundation since 2002, and it’s a well recognized brand now. Although the name ‘Blender’ is a generic word (for a mixer), in the context of products or company names related to software it’s protected by trademark law.

Two entirely different companies can even have the same trademark in two different areas of business.

A really amazing project. I would really love using this tool, and other GenAI tools to generate art. There is one recurring problem that I don't know the answer to: how could I know that no one is going to sue me for using this kind of tool for copyright infringement? How can I know that the model I generate is not too similar or copying some artist's style somewhere?

1. People can sue you for any reason, whether legitimate or not, regardless of what you do

2. Copying style is not copyright infringement, as copyright does not cover style

Is that a thing?

One of us is definitely having a hard time recognizing jokes.