FAQ
These are some of the most frequent questions users and visitors make about Blend Swap .
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What is Blend Swap?
Blend Swap is a free 3D model repository for blender based artists, where anybody can share their models with the world, join us and swap some blends!
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How do I reset my password?
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Do I need to be a registered user to be able to download the models?
Yes. Registered Users can also upload their own models anytime and have an author profile, they can edit their blends, and gain visibility in the blender community.
We now offer the option for paid monthly and yearly subscriptions. This money allows us to expand our site, server capacity and resources as it allows to cover costs.
We didn’t want to start limiting the content that we offered our users or turning Blend Swap into a 3D models store. So instead of that we think the best way to keep the site open and everything free for everyone is to offer a subscription with unlimited download bandwidth. You will have the freedom to download as many models as you want. You will also be noted in comments and your profile as a Subscribing Member. Plus you will be supporting us and helping us grow and make the site better. Please consider becoming a member and as always, thank you!
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Why Creative Commons Licenses?
We believe in openness and free culture, we want you to be able to get good models anytime, for any use you see fit, we want to help you make new contacts in the community and strengthen your skills letting you look at, modify and reuse some really great models created by Blender users from all over the world.
We don’t support Non-Commercial licenses because we believe that all blends on Blend Swap should be Open Source, and the NC clause does not comply with Open Source liberties and thus we don’t support it. We do exclude All blends in the LEGO category because we have to keep compliant with LEGO® Fair Play Guidelines.
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Can I use CG Textures files in my swapped blends?
NO. CGTextures.com, just like the majority of free (of price) textures sites, does not allow neither redistribution nor Creative Commons sub-licensing of the images they provide. You can not use even heavily modified versions of the textures they provide. While you can (and should) keep using their service for your private and commercial work, you must avoid using them for blends you share because this is a violation of their re-distribution policy. Please make sure to read and understand other sites’ licensing statements before using their services and even attempting to use them in your shares on Blend Swap and other sites.
We don’t hate CG Textures and other non-libre textures sites for this, we respect their businesses and encourage you to keep using their resources; we just have to ask you to avoid any sharing of their files and your derivative works of them.
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One of my blends is suddenly offline and I didn’t edit it, what happened?
We might take blends offline without prior notice after it has been reported by another user or if we find suspicious data in the blend (possible ripping, sharing of copyrighted materials, or simply plagiarized). When a blend is reported the owner is notified right away, along with the admins who will moderate the report according to our Terms Of Use, the author is also asked to clarify the licenses of the dubious materials included in the blend file.
Further evaluation on the author’s behavior can proceed, and, in the worst case scenario, can even culminate, according to our Terms of Use, with us blocking the account permanently.
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Can I edit my blends after uploading them?
Yes, any time! Just keep the info accurate and in topic. Blend edits are not held for moderation but admins are notified when a user edits any of their entries.
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How can my blend get featured?
Just upload an awesome or really useful blend.
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I uploaded a model to the site, but it wasn’t posted
It is possible that for some reason your upload failed. The site presents you a big blue confirmation message when an upload is successful, otherwise it failed.
Sometimes the upload will seem to finish well, but we may detect an error in the admin panel, if this is the case you will be notified of the error and asked to upload again.
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Do Blend Swap admins reject blends?
We reject blends that break the rules we have established in the first screen of our upload page without any notification. We think the rules in this screen are concise and clear and address the problem of quality standards on the site. We don’t want you to take this personal, it’s a matter of perfecting your skills and share a killer model when you feel you have advanced more with Blender. Blend Swap will always be open to your uploads, but we have to keep the bar a little higher to feature your model without it getting bad reviews from the rest of our users.
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What’s the REPORT button for?
The orange “Report this blend” button at the bottom of all blend entries allows registered users to report/flag a blend if they think the entry might have issues in licensing, copyright or authorship, this way users help us to moderate the site.
Remember: Please use this feature only when you are sure about the problem with the blend entry, if you are not sure we recommend you use the contact form to submit your doubts. Also please ALWAYS include notes and links we can follow to help in our investigations.
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If I pay a subscription, am I paying for blends?
No, you can always download all the blends on the site for free (if you wait long enough). The money you give Blend Swap as a subscriber is to cover the costs of keeping the site up and running; to let you download without limits we have to allocate a lot more bandwidth on our server for you and that’s what you pay for. Subscriptions are very advisable for people working a game or movie because it let’s them access our vast repository without limits for use in their project.
Do you have a question of your own? Ask it from our contact form →**
[**] Please make sure to read our Terms Of Use before submitting a question, registering or uploading a model, they can be updated any time without prior notice.
