Back to Home11/13/2025, 1:38:47 PM

Blender Lab

289 points
50 comments

Mood

excited

Sentiment

positive

Category

tech

Key topics

Blender

Open Source

3D Modeling

Debate intensity20/100

The Blender Lab is a new initiative announced by the Blender organization, aiming to foster innovation and collaboration in the 3D creation community.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Very active discussion

First comment

5m

Peak period

47

Day 1

Avg / period

16.7

Comment distribution50 data points

Based on 50 loaded comments

Key moments

  1. 01Story posted

    11/13/2025, 1:38:47 PM

    5d ago

    Step 01
  2. 02First comment

    11/13/2025, 1:44:15 PM

    5m after posting

    Step 02
  3. 03Peak activity

    47 comments in Day 1

    Hottest window of the conversation

    Step 03
  4. 04Latest activity

    11/15/2025, 3:45:05 PM

    3d ago

    Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (50 comments)
Showing 50 comments
raxxorraxor
5d ago
2 replies
I think there is some problem loading CSS for this site. Could be my current network though...

edit: you might need to auth yourself as human to cloudflare on blender.org for the site to display correctly.

ethmarks
5d ago
I had the same problem and authing on the main page fixed it.

If they're going to block unauthed stylesheet requests, surely they could at least make sure that the CF authenticator shows up on every page.

LukaD
5d ago
Yeah, it's indeed broken because of cloudflare... I directly navigated to the stylesheet that wouldn't load (https://www.blender.org/wp-content/themes/bthree/style.css?x...) and got the cloudflare captcha thing. Now all the assets are loading for me.
frustracean
5d ago
8 replies
If anyone else is having trouble loading the CSS for the page, go to https://www.blender.org/wp-content/themes/bthree/style.css?x... to be Captcha'd by Cloudflare - it should load fine after that.
Joeboy
5d ago
2 replies
Yeah the page is currently loading very quickly and is very easy to read due to an issue with Cloudflare.

Edit: If I'm honest, I find this specific css fairly innocuous. I have a more general grudge that raw HTML is easy, free and accessible but we collectively insisted that it's not OK to use it.

sim04ful
5d ago
4 replies
It's actually funny, the lack of styling actually makes consuming the info alot easier.
yuters
5d ago
1 reply
It is way more readable with CSS, I don't know what you're all on about.

The font is bigger, the lines are shorter, the navigation doesn't take half the page. The only thing worse would be the contrast but it's not that bad.

a2128
5d ago
1 reply
On mobile it's actually super readable and lines are a perfect length, and having to scroll past the top navigation doesn't affect readability much
saretup
5d ago
The top navigation definitely put me off, I immediately came back without even scrolling down.
hbosch
5d ago
3 replies
The page is objectively and substantially better in every aspect of legibility with CSS loaded.
NewsaHackO
5d ago
1 reply
Yea, "Minimalism is better!" is like a reflex for some people
raxxorraxor
4d ago
It often is. Turns out this page does fit the bill, CSS or not.
spiderice
5d ago
2 replies
> objectively

I do not think that word means what you think it means

hbosch
5d ago
I used it to mean that it's inarguably true and unrelated to opinion.
rendaw
5d ago
All art is a combination of objective and subjective aspects.

The objective improvements from css here include: shorter lines are easier to read (per multiple legibility studies), the styling distinguishes navigation and secondary site elements from the main content (without css you get a half screen of navigation links), and the visual importance of in-page anchor links is reduced.

catapart
5d ago
Hey, take it easy! It's not nice to pick on those poor developers who can only read text that has been piped into their preferred TUI.
amelius
5d ago
1 reply
Except I like to have some margin. And since I have a wide screen, the number of words per line is too large.
prmoustache
5d ago
1 reply
That is a weird take. Having a wide screen doesn't force you to maximize the window.
cassepipe
5d ago
2 replies
I don't know about most people but to me seeing bits of my desktop on the sides of the window I care about feels like visual noise. I like to have all my apps maximized but maybe is that just me ?
prmoustache
3d ago
How having bit of your desktop showing on the sides any different than whatever background image or color a particular website decides to show on each side of the text?

I prefer having a quiet single color background and being able to dictate how wide is the text I am reading than being limited by the website owner's choice. But that is also maybe just me.

imp0cat
5d ago
Hate seeing bits of your desktop showing? Try a tiling window manager, you might like it!
badosu
5d ago
Funny if not tragic. I was impressed at how good the styling of the page was until I realized the css did not load.
latexr
5d ago
I tested repeatedly, always clearing the cache, and there was essentially no speed difference in loading with or without the CSS. In one instance, loading with CSS was even faster.
matthewaveryusa
5d ago
1 reply
So what's the issue here (I know what the issue is in terms of the subresource not loading, a bit like an oauth redirect not executing properly if a user needs to log back in.)

Is it because of a misconfiguration on blender's end that should allow css to passthrough without verification, the query param messing a cloudflare passthrough default, or something else?

Scaevolus
5d ago
They might be allowing global public caching of their /news/ blog posts (because WordPress is slow?), but not of the static /wp-content/ directory.
Archelaos
5d ago
1 reply
Another option is to use Firefox and press [F9].
nashashmi
5d ago
MS Edge does the same thing.
ModernMech
5d ago
Thanks it worked but... lol the style doesn't even add anything, it just makes it harder to read by lowering the contrast of the page.
lastdong
5d ago
Fixed it for me, much better than having the top navigation element unstyled as a list. In any case, the CSS is pretty much innocuous, feels almost like reader mode (which is my go to). Thanks!
nashashmi
5d ago
Normally I like CSS naked websites. But some of them have multiple SVG icons right at the top that take up the entire width of the page. And that hurts.

Devs: please practice observing your site without css

blensor
5d ago
+1 on that. Works for me after that
simgt
5d ago
2 replies
If there are contributors to Blender from the industry, who are they? It's easy to understand how big tech can be contributing to Linux, data processing pipelines, web frameworks, compilers etc. but it's harder to see who has both the skills and incentives for design tools. Maybe some game studios have the necessary slack?
dagmx
5d ago
2 replies
Apple, AMD , Intel, NVIDIA, ILM are companies who have contributed or continue to contribute to Blender development.
jsheard
5d ago
1 reply
What did ILM work on? I'm looking but I can't find anything regarding them even using Blender at any point, nevermind contributing back to it.

Blender has seen more success than most open source art tools but it still seems to be relegated to individuals and small studios, while the ILMs of the world continue to be neck deep in commercial or bespoke tooling.

dagmx
5d ago
ILM contributed some changes to the color wheel. Frederico highlighted it during their SIGGRAPH sessions.
phkahler
5d ago
1 reply
Pixar contributed OpenSubdiv and may have helped with integration?
shrinks99
5d ago
Pixar also ships Renderman support for Blender https://rmanwiki-26.pixar.com/space/RFB26
Uehreka
5d ago
I recall Apple contributing a Metal backend for Cycles back when the M1 Pro/Max came out. That was a big deal, made it actually possible to do renders on a Mac in non-insane amounts of time.
lfaw
5d ago
1 reply
I'm quite interested in the academic research aspect, especially since our computational geometry group uses or plans on using Blender. However, I'm unclear about the details of this announcement. Is it related to funding opportunities or suggesting experimental features?
Duanemclemore
5d ago
1 reply
Can I ask what group you're with? I'm an architecture professor who implements (and teaches undergrads to implement) geometry with computational tool and I'm always trying to keep tabs on who's out there doing interesting work.
reactordev
5d ago
Man, to just be a fly on the wall. This is all so interesting to me. I hope these lab projects are open. I’d love to learn more about implementing computational geometry for architecture but lack the ability.
hirako2000
5d ago
1 reply
What's the label "requires funding and stakeholders". I can't see any explanation of that in the announcement
EraYaN
4d ago
Essentially that someone needs to get involved that wants it/uses it and is also willing to pay for it.
potac
5d ago
1 reply
Not sure if I understood correctly. Can we as individuals contribute to any of these projects?
Etherlord87
4d ago
I came to the comment section hoping there would be a discussion about that, but sadly overwhelming majority of posts is about malfunctioning CSS...
oktwtf
5d ago
I wonder if any of the Rendering Light Transport work includes work towards a spectral renderer.
xnx
5d ago
https://www.blender.org/lab/ might be the better link (especially given the CSS ssues)
Kye
5d ago
It sounds like they're doing their own version of the experimental build thing that's long been popular in the Blender community. That's a good thing.
DonHopkins
5d ago
This Blender Lab page "Beyond Mouse and Keyboard" page mentions the "wheel menu":

https://code.blender.org/2025/07/beyond-mouse-keyboard/

Here's an wonderful Blender extension, the Sculpt Wheel, that has concentric rings, and is deeply customizable (this video was posted 15 hours ago so it's fresh and current):

Blender 4.5 Sculpt Wheel - Glyph+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhO-aU512NE&t=1s

ID: 45914761Type: storyLast synced: 11/16/2025, 9:42:57 PM

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