While the text on this page is to the best of our knowledge accurate information, all pages on blender.org website are provided “as is”, without any warranty. Pages on this website are written by volunteers and the Blender Foundation can not be held liable for it. If you want legal advice about the GNU GPL license or other free/open source licenses please consult a lawyer.
In the last case you have the obligation to also publish the changed source code as GPL.
Games created in Blender (.blend files) are program output and therefore not covered by the GPL. You can consider them your property, and license or sell them freely.
With stand-alone games however, any data that is included inside the actual stand-alone executable is covered by the GPL. If this is a problem then you should set up the stand-alone player so it reads from external .blend files. A common practice is to include a “please wait, loading…” scene in the standalone, and read level files externally.
The Blender standalone player or the game player can be sold commercially too, but you have to make it available under the GPL conditions.
One of the main benefits of Blender is that it’s truly “your own software”. You or your studio can treat it as in-house software equally to the big powerhouses in the film industry.
To enable documentation (like books) with author copyrights, screenshots of GNU GPL applications are considered to be licensed as an author wishes. However, this only goes for the screenshot as a “whole”, as an illustration of how the software works. Individual items in a screenshot (such as icons) are still GPL.
Copyright law in different countries actually differ in this area. Please consult legal advice if you’re unsure.
The splash-screen and icons are GPL’d material therefore when using them the terms of the GPL must be followed. Usage of the Blender Logo is only GPL too when used within the context of screenshots of the GUI with or without splash screen.
The Blender logo is a trademark, usage guidelines are here.
The Blender Foundation logo is also a trademark, and only used for official Blender Foundation communications.
Yes, you are free to name Blender whatever you like, and repackage and distribute it under your own branding, provided you still deliver or publish it under the GPL conditions to your clients.
You can NOT change Blender’s copyright notices, nor make claims you wrote or created that program.
Without explicit permission, you then can also NOT change existing claims or credits that have been published for Blender, such as feature or specification listings on blender.org, galleries or movies, release notes, screenshots, press articles, reviews, and so on.
If you wish to rename and/or rebrand Blender, you will have to create and use your own credits and achievements as well.
Some companies have contacted Blender Foundation about the possibility of having an add-on in our releases that hook up Blender with their services. For example 3d printing services or render farm providers.
Such add-ons would make it easier for users to submit 3d models to a 3d printing service (one click submit, costs feedback, etc). Or for submitting render jobs to a farm with some feedback mechanisms.
Below is the proposal that was reviewed and accepted by the core developer team.
Blender Foundation will accept add-ons in a release from commercial vendors/services under the following conditions:
For more more questions you can always connect to foundation at blender org.
Since 2002, hundreds of titles covering Blender have been published. Nowadays you can find them in any bookstore or online stores.
Up-to-date documentation can be found in the Blender Manual.
There are many community-driven discussion boards where you can ask questions or give answers related to using Blender, such as blender.stackexchange.com. See the support section for more information.
Yes you can. Any creation you make as an artist with Blender is your sole property, and can be applied for any purpose you choose to. This also applies the Add-ons and Python scripts you write for Blender.
If you like to distribute Blender itself, you have to be aware of the GPL rules, which basically means you have to make sources for Blender available as well. However, in general it’s sufficient to provide information that forwards to blender.org.
More information about the way how the license works can be found here, also with information about game files, game players and Python scripts.
Blender can be downloaded free of charge at the Download section of this website.
Currently, there are versions of Blender available for Windows, macOS and Linux. You will also need an OpenGL compatible graphics card, preferably from a quality vendor such as NVIDIA or AMD. As for all 3D programs, a workstation certified for 3D graphics is always best. See the full list of requirements.
Blender was originally developed as in-house 3D software by the Dutch animation studio NeoGeo. As a spin-off of NeoGeo, co-founder Ton Roosendaal founded a new company called Not a Number to market and develop Blender, while making Blender available to anyone via the internet. Sadly, NaN’s ambitions and opportunities didn’t match the company’s capabilities and the market realities of the time, and after a turbulent corporate history, Not a Number was shut down in in early 2002. (Read more about Blender’s history here)
In May 2002, Ton Roosendaal started the non-profit Blender Foundation with the goal of resurrecting Blender as an open source software project. A deal was reached with the company’s investors to initiate a fund-raising campaign to buy back the rights to Blender, at a cost of EUR 100,000. Thanks to an enthusiastic group of volunteers including several ex-NaN employees, along with donations from thousands of loyal Blender supporters, the EUR 100,000 target was reached in seven short weeks. Blender was then freely released to the world under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Of course! You may give any of the versions of Blender on Blender.org to other people, or share it internally via a server.
Yes. The GNU GPL does allow your organization to use a modified version of Blender internally without offering the source-code as long as you do not distribute it outside your company or organization.
Yes. The output of Blender, in the form of .blend files, is considered program output, and the sole copyright of the user. The .blend file format only stores data definitions.
In case you embed the .blend file with Python scripts, and the scripts provide bindings to other libraries or facilities, the next topic applies.
If you share or publish Python scripts they have to be made available compliant to the GNU GPL as well, if they use Blender Python API calls.
Yes you can, but only if you provide the add-on and the sources to your clients under the GNU GPL license. The client then benefits from all rights the GPL offers; free to use it, or even distribute it when they wish.
You have full freedom to license your software product however you wish if and only if:
– It operates outside of Blender.
– Uses no Blender source code or API calls (including Python API).
– Produces data for Blender to operate on.
– Executes Blender to read and operate on the data.
Yes you can, but only if you provide this new version of Blender and the sources to your clients under the same GPL license. The client then benefits from all rights the GPL offers; free to use it, or even distribute it when they wish.
This method provides a business model for contracting and support business with Blender. You can freely sell fixed or changed code in Blender, for as long you deliver this as GPL to clients. You don’t have the obligation to publish it for everyone.
Yes you can. If the changed version of Blender stays within one organization or company, you have the freedom to use and change Blender without a requirement to publish these changes. When you want to share it with others outside of the company you have to make all the source codes available to them as well, as GNU GPL.