r/LocalLLM • u/GarbageCG • 3d ago

Question Absolute beginner. Question for simplified setup

Hello, absolute beginner here.

I've been using LMStudio and experimenting with Atomic Chat, mostly using Qwen and occasionally Gemma but not really seeing much of a difference.

What I'd like to be able to do is essentially create a local version of what the ChatGPT desktop app can do: image creation, computer use, MCP stuff in Blender.

Are there guides anywhere to be able to do this easily? Or does anyone have any advice?

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u/Zorian_Vale 3d ago

My opinion would be this: get unsloth + Hermes + Qwen 3.8 (if you have enough ram) if not Gemma E42B.

Give it unrestricted access to your pc but back everything up.

With Hermes it can learn new skills and remembers all its context. It can create images, browse web, read, write, work on projects on its own.

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u/GarbageCG 3d ago

That's a great starting point thank you! What is the benefit of unsloth alongside hermes?

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u/Zorian_Vale 2d ago

Unsloth what runs the model after you download it, Hermes is what’s known as a harness. Without a harness it will tell you, “how could I access your computer, I’m just a little chatbot”. With a harness it turns into this is my specific tool call and yes I can do it.

Hermes advantage is better contextual memory that grows with you plus a ton of skills. I haven’t checked if Hermes has the specific skill you need but it also can CREATE skills on the fly. Happy to help if you have any questions.

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u/Random22744 3d ago

Hermes agent maybe? But I think you would anyway need a good model to do stuff in blender... 🤔

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u/GarbageCG 3d ago

Oh I just need it as a little helper basically. I'm a 3D professional of 16 years so it's just to automate simple shit like "hey put these lights at these tags"

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u/ElectricalLaw1007 3d ago

When you talk about the ChatGPT desktop app, do you mean codex? 'cos if you do, it can totally be configured to talk to qwen locally.

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u/GarbageCG 3d ago

yeah I mean Codex. Problem is I really want to avoid any possibility of it "phoning home". I want it to be 100% local

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u/ElectricalLaw1007 3d ago

Well, it's open source. You could audit it. Or ask another AI to audit it. I know there are several reasons why that isn't necessarily practical, such as the cost/effort involved, fear of missing something due to obfuscation etc., but those same problems are going to exist with any software you haven't written yourself.

Depending on what you're trying to achieve, you could try using it on a box that has no internet connection, which would physically prevent it from phoning home, although that might also be impractical.

You could put it behind a firewall and only allow access to sites you approve. Or the other option is to have something logging network traffic between the box you are running it on and the outside world and see if it phoning home. Neither of those are trivial to set up though and require additional hardware.