AI 3D asset generation inside Blender, powered by Runware.ai Type a prompt or drop in a reference image — Runforge calls the Runware.ai API and imports the finished fully textured model directly into your Blender workspace.
Supports Tripo v3.1 and Meshy-6. No external Python dependencies. Blender 4.2+.
Runforge adds a sidebar panel to Blender's 3D Viewport (keyboard shortcut N). From there you can:
- Generate a textured 3D model from a text prompt
- Reconstruct geometry from a single reference image
- Watch generation progress with a live elapsed timer
- Re-import or locate any previous generation from the History panel
The model is downloaded, saved to your output folder, and imported at the world origin — selected and ready — without leaving Blender.
| Model | Text → 3D | Image → 3D | Output format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tripo v3.1 | ✓ — $0.30 / gen | ✓ — $0.40 / gen | GLB (text) · FBX (image) |
| Meshy-6 | ✓ — ~$0.80 / gen | ✓ — ~$0.80 / gen | GLB |
- Go to the Releases page and download the latest
runforge-x.x.x.zip - In Blender: Edit → Preferences → Extensions → Install from Disk...
- Select the downloaded zip — do not unzip it first
- Enter your Runware API key in the extension preferences
Your API key is stored in Blender's own preferences file (userpref.blend) and persists across sessions.
- Blender 4.2 or later
- A free Runware account & API key
Open the Runware tab in the 3D Viewport N-panel (N key).
- Model — choose Tripo v3.1 or Meshy-6
- Mode — Text to 3D or Image to 3D
- Prompt / Image — enter a description or select a reference file
- Advanced Settings — expand for geometry quality, texture, poly count limit, and more
- Generate — the panel shows live status; click Cancel at any time
On completion the model appears in your scene at the origin, auto-selected.
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Geometry Quality | Standard · Detailed |
| Texture Quality | Standard · Detailed |
| Texture Alignment | Default · Match Image · Match Geometry (image mode only) |
| Face Limit | 0–20,000 (0 = no limit) |
| PBR | On · Off |
| Texture | On · Off |
| Quad Mesh | On · Off |
| Smart Low-Poly | Coming soon |
| Negative Prompt | Text to steer away from unwanted elements (text mode only) |
| Seed | Integer for reproducible results (0 = random) |
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| Mesh Type | Standard · Low-Poly |
| Poly Count | 100–300,000 (default 30,000; standard mesh only) |
| Topology | Triangle · Quad (standard mesh only) |
| Pose | None · A-Pose · T-Pose |
| Symmetry | Auto · On · Off |
| Texture | On · Off |
| PBR | On · Off |
| HD Texture | On · Off — 4K base colour texture |
| Remove Lighting | On · Off — strips baked highlights for custom lighting |
| Texture Prompt | Additional prompt to guide texturing (text mode only) |
A Speed / Quality / Custom preset can be set in Edit → Preferences → Add-ons → Runware 3D. Speed uses Standard geometry and lower poly counts. Quality uses Detailed geometry, Quad mesh, HD Texture, and higher poly counts. Custom leaves all settings to you.
The History panel lists your last 10 generations. Each entry has a Re-import button and a Show in Explorer button. A Refresh button re-scans the output folder — deleted files are pruned from the list automatically.
- Output folder: set in preferences; defaults to
runware_output/next to your.blendfile (or~/runware_output/if the file hasn't been saved yet) - File naming:
{model}_{prompt-slug}_{date}_{time}.glb— human-readable and sortable by date - History file:
runware_history.jsonin the output folder — plain JSON, easy to inspect or version-control
- Your API key is never written to disk by Runforge. It is stored exclusively by Blender's own preferences system (
userpref.blend), the same place Blender stores all add-on settings. - No data is sent anywhere except
api.runware.ai. Runforge makes POST requests tohttps://api.runware.ai/v1only — your prompts and images go to Runware's API and nowhere else. - No external Python packages are installed. Runforge uses Python's standard library only (
urllib,json,threading,base64). Nothing is pip-installed, no network calls happen at install time. - Reference images are encoded locally. When you supply a reference image it is base64-encoded in memory and sent directly to the API — it is never uploaded to a third-party service or cached externally by this add-on.
Runforge itself is free and open source. Generation costs are charged by Runware directly against your account balance:
| Generation | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| Tripo v3.1 text → 3D | $0.30 |
| Tripo v3.1 image → 3D | $0.40 |
| Meshy-6 (text or image) | $0.80 |
Costs are shown in the panel after each generation. The exact amount depends on your Runware plan and any active credits. Check runware.ai/pricing for current rates.
- One generation at a time — queue or parallel generation is not yet supported
- Single Reference Image — multiple reference images for Image to 3D is not yet supported
- Polling only — status is checked every 3 seconds; there are no push callbacks
- 10-minute timeout — if the API hasn't responded in 10 minutes, the job is surfaced as timed out (it may still complete on the Runware side)
- Reference image size limit — reference images must be under 20 MB
- No viewport render shortcut — Image-to-3D from a Blender render requires saving the render to disk first
- Model Availability - Meshy-6 and Tripo V3.1 are available in this version. I will expand to cover all of Runware's 3D Models in a later version.
- Meshy-6 Pose (A-Pose / T-Pose) has no effect — the parameter is accepted but the output ignores it.
- Meshy-6 Texture Prompt has no effect — the parameter is accepted but does not influence texturing.
- Tripo Smart Low-Poly is disabled — the setting is not yet functional and will be available in a future release.
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome. Please open an issue before starting significant work so we can discuss direction.
GPL-3.0-or-later — see LICENSE.