blender-kiln

<p align="center"> <img src="blender-kiln-logo.png" alt="blender-kiln logo" width="200" /> </p> <h1 align="center">blender-kiln — The 3D Asset Forge</h1> <p align="center"> <a href="https://github.com/elithril/blender-kiln/actions/workflows/verify.yml"><img alt="docs verified" src="https://github.com/elithril/blender-kiln/actions/workflows/verify.yml/badge.svg" /></a> <a href="https://github.com/elithril/blender-kiln/actions/workflows/blender.yml"><img alt="Blender checks" src="https://github.com/elithril/blender-kiln/actions/workflows/blender.yml/badge.svg" /></a> <a href="LICENSE"><img alt="License: MIT" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg" /></a> <img alt="Claude Code plugin" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Claude%20Code-plugin-d97757" /> <img alt="Blender 4.4+, verified on 5.0 and 5.2" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Blender-4.4%2B%20%C2%B7%20verified%205.0%2F5.2-e87d0d?logo=blender&logoColor=white" /> <a href="https://github.com/elithril/blender-kiln/stargazers"><img alt="Stars" src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/elithril/blender-kiln?style=flat" /></a> </p>

A Claude Code skill that turns a text brief — or a photo — into a production-ready GLB through Blender. Blender MCP servers give an agent hands in Blender; kiln gives it the production method on top — sourcing, cleanup, texturing, optimization, validation, export — and works on both of them: ahujasid's mcp-for-blender and the Blender Foundation's official Blender Lab MCP, the server behind Claude's Blender connector.

_{Cited in <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01057"><i>3DCodeBench: Benchmarking Agentic Procedural 3D Modeling Via Code</i></a> (Google DeepMind, USC, 2026), §1.}

<p align="center"> <img src="docs/images/photo-to-asset.webp" alt="Three reference photos — a hurricane lantern, an ammo box, a gothic chair — and below each, the GLB kiln 2.0 shipped from it, turning" width="100%" /> </p> <p align="center">_{From one photo each, no marketplace, no AI generation: scripted in Blender, textured from CC0 scans, measured against the real object. Shape scores against the real assets: <b>0.897</b>, <b>0.950</b>, <b>0.750</b> — <a href="docs/benchmarks.md">how they are measured</a>.}</p>

Quickstart

/plugin marketplace add elithril/blender-kiln
/plugin install blender-kiln@blender-kiln
/kiln setup
/kiln A hanging iron lantern for a medieval inn, stylized, for the web

/kiln setup detects Blender, the MCP server and the optional tools, and says what is missing. Blender 4.4+ with a Blender MCP running — see Requirements. Give it a photo and it rebuilds the object: /kiln Rebuild the lamp in ./lamp.png as a game asset.

How it works, from a photo

<p align="center"> <img src="docs/images/how-it-works.webp" alt="Five steps from a real session on an ammo box: the photo read in crops, eight scanned textures compared, the silhouette overlay, every joint rendered, the shipped GLB" width="100%" /> </p> <p align="center">_{Every panel is a file the session itself wrote while rebuilding the ammo box above — nothing re-staged.}</p>

1. Read the photo before modeling. An inventory of every part and how it meets the next, from enlarged crops; the real size, the camera's height and angle — asked, or stated as assumptions. Given a 3D mesh generated from the same photo, its proportions are measured instead (TRELLIS.2, locally) — never shipped.
2. Texture from scans, not noise. A Poly Haven CC0 texture set of the material family, chosen by eye against the photo, tinted to its palette, worn by the form.
3. Measure against the photo. plugin/tools/fidelity_check.py renders the model at the photo's camera under a studio light and lists the gaps — silhouette per height band, materials, metal that cannot exist.
4. Look at every joint. Each end of a long part that touches another is rendered alone: a part that joins another enters it.
5. Ship, and measure the file that ships. Optimized (Draco, WebP), validated, re-measured as a GLB — what the user gets, not the .blend.

Measured, not claimed

A quality bench runs the skill headless, each session in a sandbox, and measures every GLB it ships after re-importing it. Photo references are Poly Haven previews, so the real 3D asset exists: each rebuild is scored against it from five sides — an asset the session never sees. Blender 5.2.2, Opus 5.5, one run each:

| From a photo | before the photo method | kiln 2.0 | shipped | cost | |---|---:|---:|---:|---:| | Hurricane lantern | 0.830 | 0.897 | 229 KB | $5.04 | | Ammo box | 0.854 | 0.950 | 187 KB | $3.80 | | Gothic chair | 0.445 | 0.750 | 239 KB | $6.13 |

| Five text briefs, before → after | ahujasid MCP | Official Lab MCP | |---|---:|---:| | Shipped | 32.9 MB → 0.96 MB | 3.9 MB → 0.75 MB | | Final GLBs compressed (Draco, WebP) | 0 of 7 → 7 of 7 | 0 of 7 → 7 of 7 | | Defects the measure found | 2 → 1 | 2 → 0 | | Cost for the five (API-equivalent) | $6.49 → $7.34 | $5.82 → $7.81 |

_{Shape score: silhouette overlap with the real asset from front, back, sides and top, 1 = identical; openwork views left out for the chair. The text briefs were measured on the skill mid-way through 2.0 (2b313d2), the photo rebuilds on the final one. Size is assumed when a brief gives none — the chair came out at an ordinary chair's height, 29 % short.}

Close, not identical, on purpose. kiln stops at a few dollars per object. img2threejs, which rebuilds an image as Three.js code through eight vision-reviewed passes, keeps finer surface detail: on the same lantern its likeness was comparable — 0.866 against kiln's 0.861 — at about three times the cost, estimated on a run stopped after three of its eight passes. Several of its techniques were measured and adopted in kiln: traced wires, layered texture fields, a frosted-glass recipe (benchmarks § 4).

What did not improve is published too: the benchmarks — fifteen versions of one lantern, what each fix broke, how the bench was kept honest — and every number, render and GLB under 1 MB on the bench-results branch — kept out of main so that installing the plugin does not download them.

What it does

Kiln is a Claude Code skill that turns you into a 3D asset production studio. It orchestrates Blender (via MCP), AI generation (Hunyuan3D, FLUX.1-schnell concept art), and marketplace search (PolyHaven, Sketchfab) into a single coherent pipeline.

[1] CONFIG → [2] BRIEF → [3] SOURCE → [4] IMPORT → [5] CLEANUP → [5b] TEXTURING → [6] OPTIMIZE → [7] EXPORT

Pipeline phases

| Phase | What happens | |---|---| | CONFIG | Collect parameters: asset type, style, export target, detail tier | | BRIEF | Reformulate and confirm understanding — enrich with reference image details if provided (user brief always wins over image) | | SOURCE | Search marketplaces OR create via AI generation / scripted modeling / geometry nodes — reference image guides all methods | | IMPORT | Import into Blender, verify scale (1 unit = 1m), center origin | | CLEANUP | Merge doubles, recalc normals, apply transforms, check poly budget | | TEXTURING | Geometric analysis + PolyHaven PBR, procedural materials, or bake from procedural | | RIG | Characters: a skeleton sized to the mesh, joints at the bends, weights checked on a bent pose | | ANIMATE | Optional, routed by subject: the asset's own clips; scripted idle/walk for quadrupeds; UniMate text-to-motion for bipeds and winged creatures, looped (non-commercial weights); keyed rigid parts for articulated objects | | OPTIMIZE | gltf-transform (resize, WebP, Draco) and/or gltfpack (simplify, LOD) | | EXPORT | GLB, FBX, USDZ — with validation checklist |

Key features

• Rebuild from a photo, measured: an inventory from enlarged crops, the size and camera settled first, the silhouette and materials measured against the photo, every joint rendered and looked at, the last measure on the shipped GLB (how)
• Textures from CC0 scans: Poly Haven texture sets chosen against the photo, tinted to its palette, worn by the form, baked to UVs — procedural only when no scan fits
• A 3D template when one exists: proportions read off a mesh generated from the same photo (TRELLIS.2, run locally) with plugin/tools/template_profile.py — measured, never shipped
• Both Blender MCP servers: ahujasid's mcp-for-blender and the Blender Foundation's official Lab MCP, the one behind Claude's Blender connector
• Multi-method creation: AI generation (Hunyuan3D 2.x — local or cloud), scripted modeling (Blender Python), geometry nodes, or marketplace sourcing
• Local AI generation: run Hunyuan3D-2 Mini on your machine — NVIDIA GPU for full pipeline, Apple Silicon for shape generation
• Environment auto-detection: /kiln setup scans your system and guides installation
• Reference images: provide an image per asset (path, URL, or drag-and-drop) — guides all creation methods (AI input, scripted proportions, texture assignment), enriches the brief, and enables post-export visual comparison
• Concept art input: text prompt (FLUX.1-schnell HF Space, free), image path, image URL, or nano-banana (optional)
• Smart recommendations: auto-suggests the best creation method based on asset type and style
• Material audit: detects procedural nodes that will be lost on GLTF export, proposes bake workflow
• Optimized by default: _final.glb ships with Draco geometry and WebP textures, re-measured after compression; the uncompressed _original.glb is kept
• Post-export validation: 8-point checklist (Babylon.js sandbox, Three.js console, material spot-check)
• Character support: T-pose enforcement, an animation-ready skeleton (joints at the bends, checked on a bent pose), bone validation, Blender 5.x bone collections
• Animation, routed by subject (see above): scripted idle/walk cycles for quadrupeds, UniMate text-to-motion for bipeds and winged creatures — pinned version, weekly drift check, seamless loops — and keyed articulated props
• Multi-asset sessions: cross-asset coherence (scale, materials, poly budget)
• Batch mode: wizard collects scene/theme/palette/reference images upfront, generates a YAML manifest, runner executes autonomously — ideal for overnight production or large asset sets
• Full logging: every asset produces a production log with copy-paste prompts

Running over Blender MCP

The skill drives a live Blender through the Blender MCP addon. Below is SM_Barrel built, cleaned and exported inside a running Blender session — object named to convention, sitting on Z=0, ready to export:

<p align="center"> <img src="docs/images/mcp-viewport.webp" alt="A barrel built by the kiln pipeline inside a live Blender session, with the BlenderMCP panel visible in the sidebar" width="88%" /> </p>

The MCP pass and the headless scripted pass agree to the byte — 111.9 kB GLB either way, same 2,202 triangles, same three materials.

Check the integrations before you search

<img src="docs/images/mcp-panel.webp" alt="The BlenderMCP sidebar panel with all four integrations unchecked" width="215" align="right" />

All four integrations ship off, as shown here. That matters more than it looks: while an integration is off, the addon does not register its commands at all, so a search does not come back "disabled" — it comes b