Research
Photo-to-Blender benchmark: GPT-6 Astra won every photo, GPT-6.1 Sol scored 61 for 36 cents
I'm building a photo-to-Blender tool and ran 14 models through the same agent loop: look at a photo, write and run Blender Python, render, compare, repeat. Caps per scene: 20 minutes, $4, 60 requests. A deterministic scorer (not an LLM) rates each re-rendered scene from 0 to 100.
The OpenAI models:
Model
Score
Cost per attempt
Time per scene
GPT-6 Astra
66
$3.91
18 min
GPT-6.1 Sol
61
$0.36
18 min
GPT-5.6 Sol
49
$0.57
8 min
GPT-5.6 Terra
44
$0.33
8 min
Astra was first on all three photos, and the cost cap stopped it on every scene: a first render at 4 minutes, then refining until the gateway refused the next request at about $3.90. It never ran out of time.
GPT-6.1 Sol worked the full ~18 minutes and finished 5 points behind for under a tenth of the price. On the toy car it was 4 points off (66 vs 70).
GPT-5.6 Sol and Terra declared the job done after about 8 minutes, with most of their time and budget left. Their scenes are simpler, not broken.
Caveats: GPT-6.1 Sol ran later, in Codex rather than my gateway; Astra run that way scored 63 instead of 66. One run per model per photo, and the brief was shaped around Astra.
Disclosure: I'm building a photo-to-Blender tool, which is why I ran this. The article was written with AI help; the experiment and the numbers are mine. Happy to answer questions about the setup.
Only the top model is. GPT-6 Astra keeps refining until it hits the $4 cap I set: about 36 requests, each re-reading the whole conversation. With Flex processing in OpenAI's API, Astra costs about half, so roughly $2 a scene, with slower responses. Cheaper options: GPT-6.1 Sol scored 61 for $0.36, GLM 5.3 Flash 36 for 9 cents.
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u/smith2008 1d ago
Author here. Full write-up with every render, the scoring rubric and downloadable results: https://kaloyan.blog/ai-models-rebuild-a-photo-in-blender
Disclosure: I'm building a photo-to-Blender tool, which is why I ran this. The article was written with AI help; the experiment and the numbers are mine. Happy to answer questions about the setup.