Blender MCP — One-Click Installer for Claude & Codex (Windows)

The setup, both ways

Claude Desktop already ships everything the connector needs, which is what removes the first four of those chores outright. Codex needs one free thing first: Node.js, from nodejs.org.

What is Blender MCP?

MCP — the Model Context Protocol — is an open standard that lets an AI assistant use real software instead of only describing it. Blender MCP applies that to Blender: Claude can read your scene, run Blender's Python, add and modify objects, pull in free HDRIs and textures, and look at what it built from several angles to check its own work.

In practice you describe what you want and watch it appear, then refine it in plain language — warmer light, camera lower, rougher glaze.

"Build a small still life: a wooden table with three ceramic bowls, lit from a window on the left. Then look at it from a few angles and fix anything that looks wrong."

How to install Blender MCP on Windows

Written for someone who has never installed a Blender add-on. You need Blender and Claude Desktop, both free, installed first. Nothing else. Using Codex instead? Install it and Node.js first, and the same steps set it up.

1. Unzip the download

   Right-click the file you receive by email and choose Extract All. Extract the whole folder rather than opening files from inside the zip — that is the single most common thing that goes wrong.

2. Close Blender, then run the installer

   Double-click INSTALL.bat. It finds every copy of Blender on your PC, installs the add-on and switches it on, telling you what it is doing in plain English as it goes. If Codex is installed, it adds the connector to Codex as well.

   Windows may show a blue "Windows protected your PC" box. Click More info, then Run anyway. That appears for any installer without a code-signing certificate — the file is plain text, so you can read exactly what it does in Notepad first.

3. Add the extension to Claude

   Double-click the .mcpb file. Claude Desktop opens and asks you to confirm — click Install, then quit Claude Desktop completely and reopen it. Codex users skip this step and just restart Codex.

4. Open Blender

   The add-on connects by itself when Blender starts. To see it, hover over the large 3D area and press N, then click the MCP for Blender tab. It should read Connected on port 9876. If it says Not connected, click Connect to MCP server. Leave Blender open while you work.

5. Check it worked

   In Claude Desktop or Codex, type check the blender connection. It reports your Blender version and how many objects are in your scene. If something is wrong it names the step to fix rather than just failing, including when a second Blender MCP add-on is holding the same port. That check exists so you never have to guess.

What Claude can do in Blender

• Read your sceneObject names, types, positions, materials and mesh statistics, so its suggestions are about your actual file rather than a generic answer.
• Run Blender's PythonFull access to the same scripting API that add-ons use. Anything Blender can do, it can drive.
• See its own workThe viewport, the view through your camera, the object from four sides at once, a wireframe pass, or a strip across the animation. Every setting it changes to take the picture is put back afterwards.
• Look things up instead of guessingBlender's Python API and node sockets change between versions. It checks the real names in your copy of Blender before writing code against them, which is where most failed scripts come from.
• ExportThe scene, the selection or named objects to GLB or FBX, for game engines and viewers.
• Pull in free assetsSearch, download and apply PolyHaven HDRIs, textures and models straight into your open scene. No account, no API key.

Ten recipes, built in

Setup gets you connected; these get you results. They appear in Claude Desktop's prompt menu — pick one, fill in the blanks, send. Each is written as direction rather than a fixed script, so it adapts to whatever you actually have open.

• Three-point lightingKey, fill and rim scaled to your subject rather than dropped at fixed coordinates. Soft, neutral or dramatic.
• Light with a free HDRISearches PolyHaven, downloads, and rotates the environment so the light actually flatters the subject.
• Frame the subjectCamera placement with a real focal-length decision behind it, and thirds composition instead of dead centre.
• Clay / form checkNeutral override so you can read shape without colour distracting you. Fully reversible.
• Studio scaffoldA seamless cyclorama backdrop sized to your scene — the biggest single difference between an amateur and a professional product render.
• Believable materialPhysically sensible metals and dielectrics, with roughness broken up so the surface stops reading as CG.
• Render settingsCycles or EEVEE dialled for a stated speed-versus-quality tradeoff, with an honest estimate of the time cost.
• Depth of fieldFocus object and f-stop chosen like a real lens, with a warning when your subject is too deep to hold focus.
• Clean up the sceneAudits unapplied scale, flipped normals, loose geometry and orphaned data — and tells you what was wrong before changing anything.
• TurntableOrbits the camera rather than the object, because rotating the object makes the lighting swim across the surface and gives it away instantly.

Built on open source, and we say so

This package includes the MCP for Blender add-on (formerly BlenderMCP) by Siddharth Ahuja under the MIT licence, which expressly permits redistribution and sale. The licence and full attribution ship inside the download. The add-on is shipped unchanged apart from a note saying so.

• We wrote the connectorThe original needs Python and a package manager; ours runs on what Claude Desktop already includes, or on Node.js for Codex. It sends Blender one request at a time, because Blender runs them one at a time anyway, and older copies of the add-on dropped connections when several arrived at once.
• We test each releaseThis build carries add-on 1.8, tested end to end on Blender 3.4, 4.5 LTS, 5.1 and 5.2 LTS. The add-on can update itself from GitHub; if it moves past the version we tested, the connection check says so.
• We tidy up the clashesIf another copy of the add-on is already installed, two copies cannot load at once, so the installer sets the other aside (renamed, never deleted). If Blender's official MCP add-on is installed, it warns you, because both want the same port.

Worth knowing, and we would rather you heard it here: the Blender Foundation now ships its own official MCP server, released as v1.0.0 on 27 April 2026. It is free, needs Blender 5.1 or newer, and if you want it, go and get it. Its emphasis is different from ours — Python API access and documentation search, aimed at understanding Blender rather than at art direction — and installing it means adding the Lab extension repository, which is straightforward when the index syncs and opaque when antivirus or a corporate network stops it.

The honest position: the connector underneath this product is the part with a free official alternative. The ten recipes are the part that doesn't — they are about lighting, framing and material craft, not about which server sits below them, so they apply just as well the day you switch. Buy this for the two-minute setup and the recipes, not because it is the only way in.

What you need

• WindowsThe installer is Windows-only. The extension itself is cross-platform and Mac and Linux users can install it by hand, but we do not support that path and would rather say so than take your money for it.
• Blender 3.0 or newerTested end to end against 3.4, 4.5 LTS, 5.1 and 5.2 LTS.
• Claude Desktop or CodexClaude Desktop's free tier works; a paid plan handles complex scenes better because it can take more turns before hitting a limit. Codex also needs Node.js 18 or newer, free from nodejs.org. Codex asks before running code in Blender and lets the look-only tools run without asking.
• In the downloadThe Claude extension, the Codex connector, the installer and uninstaller, the add-on with its licence, a plain-English start guide, and a troubleshooting document ordered by how often each problem actually happens.

Common questions