Providers

	TRELLIS.2 (local)	Meshy	Tripo
Runs	Your GPU, or one you rent	Hosted	Hosted
Cost	Free beyond hardware	Metered, your own key	Metered, your own key
Seed	Yes — a definition is a recipe	—	—
Input	One image only	Text or images	Text, image, or up to four views
Licence tier	Free, closed source	Free, closed source	Free, closed source

TRELLIS.2 — local and reproducible

Microsoft's TRELLIS.2 in Docker on your own GPU or a rented one. Turns a single reference image into a textured PBR mesh, costs nothing beyond hardware, and honours a seed.

Code and weights are MIT licensed, with one real asterisk.

It conditions on a gated model. TRELLIS.2 needs facebook/dinov3-vitl16-pretrain-lvd1689m, which is gated under Meta's licence and requires manual approval before anything can generate.

Worse, that grant does not currently appear on the Keys page — no mesh provider declares a key-access requirement, so the page shows the shared Hugging Face key without the grant it needs. This is a known gap. Request access at the model's Hugging Face page; approval can take days.

One image, and it says so

It generates from one image and nothing else — no text prompt, no multiple images. MeshForge reports this as a capability, so a prompt-only definition is refused with a sentence rather than a schema error.

No mesh pipeline class

TRELLIS has no mesh pipeline of its own. A definition reaches it through its Provider Id (Mesh ▸ Advanced, or the default provider), which the Stages tab shows as "<id> (provider settings, no pipeline)".

The pipeline list therefore offers no TRELLIS mesh entry; an agent names it through the definition's ProviderId.

A Mesh Definition for a spacecraft atmospheric scrubber. The left viewer is empty and reads 'Generated, but not imported. Run the Import stage to bring it into the project.' The right half shows the Stages tab. The Mesh stage is marked 'not run' and headed 'Trellis (provider settings, no pipeline)', with the scrubber prompt beneath it, an option to start from an existing mesh, and a notice: 'No main image chosen. Pick one in the Images tab — right-click a picture and choose Main image.' Post-processing reads 'None — the mesh is imported as generated.' — Two TRELLIS facts, visible: the Mesh stage names it 'provider settings, no pipeline', because it has no pipeline class; and it refuses to run without a main image, since it reconstructs from exactly one picture. The viewer reads 'Generated, but not imported' — generating and importing are separate stages, and a result can sit between them.

This route is early, and this definition is the evidence. Its last run ended with "Gave up after 900 seconds. The job may still be running." — the mesh runner's lease timing out rather than the model failing. Treat TRELLIS as experimental: it is genuinely free and genuinely reproducible, and it will also make you wait and sometimes give up.

The quality ladder is gated by VRAM

Quality	Resolution	Measured
Draft	512³	—
Standard	1024³ cascade	—
High	1024³ cascade	12.7 min cold on a 32 GB 5090; 24.7 min on 16 GB, by paging
Ultra	1536³	Never seen to finish below 80 GB

A project-level ceiling caps it once (default High), so nobody picks Ultra on a laptop and waits.

Containers come up on demand

A stage that needs a runner takes a lease. The runner starts on the first lease — off the game thread, then polling health until it answers — and stops after the last is dropped: 900 s for the mesh runner, 300 s for the image runner.

It never stops a container it did not start, and by default leaves runners up when the editor closes.

A failure to get ready names one of five causes rather than saying "failed".

A separate image runner

Local reference-image generation runs in its own container on its own port.

The reason it is separate is measured: a High mesh that took 251 s with the card to itself did not finish in 45 minutes beside a resident image model.

It offers FLUX.2 klein 4B (Apache-2.0, default, about 15 s, 8.1 GB peak) and SDXL 1.0.

A helper script decides from measured VRAM whether the two runners may share the card or must take it in turn — a 9-second swap, measured on 16 GB.

Blackwell (RTX 50-series)

The runner probes attention kernels and pins one that works, avoiding the one that breaks, and reports its compiled architectures on its health endpoint. Set MESHFORGE_ATTENTION_KERNEL=off to restore default dispatch.

Meshy — hosted

Four pipelines:

Standard (high quality) — meshy-7.1 by default, with meshy-7 marked superseded, plus older models. geometry_resolution (standard / 2k / 4k) replaces the deprecated ultra_mode; a saved definition carrying ultra_mode is carried to 2k on load, and 4k is refused unless the model supports it with a single picture. Also image enhancement, auto-size, and a multi-image switch (main picture plus up to three views).
Smart lowpoly (T2) — target polycount 100–15,000.
Image (nano-banana, GPT Image) — four models at 3 to 9 credits, with pose and aspect ratio.
Retexture (a post step) — style from a description, one picture or several; 2K / 4K / 8K.

A Mesh Definition for a nuclear battery prop, shown in the viewer at 2,320,764 triangles, 1,239,651 vertices, 1 material, 152 by 107 by 190 cm, with Nanite. The Stages panel shows Concept image unticked while References, Mesh, Post-processing and Import are ticked. The References stage, marked 'not run', warns in amber: '3 extra view(s) chosen and this generator will read 0. The other 3 will NOT be sent — it reconstructs from what it is given, so the result is made from 1 picture(s). Change the generator, or remove the extra views.' The Mesh stage is stale, on the 'Meshy — Standard (high quality)' pipeline, showing one main image in its Input group with multi-image-to-3d unticked, and a Model group setting ai_model to meshy-7.1 (current), geometry_resolution to standard, image_enhancement ticked and auto_size unticked. — Meshy's own fields, and a warning worth reading twice: three extra views are chosen and this generator will read none of them, because multi-image-to-3d is off. The stage says so before the run rather than producing a mesh built from one picture and leaving you to wonder.

How many pictures a generator reads is a property of the generator, not of the definition. Tripo's image stage says "it can read up to 3"; Meshy's Standard pipeline reads the extras only when multi-image-to-3d is on, and zero when it is off.

So choosing extra views in the Images tab is not the same as sending them. The References stage reconciles the two and names both numbers — "3 chosen and this generator will read 0" — with both ways out: change the generator, or remove the views.

Note also the Concept image stage unticked in that capture. This definition starts from a picture somebody already had, so the stage that draws one is switched off and does not appear in the list below.

A definition driven by quality alone, with no pipeline, keeps the older ladder on purpose: Draft and Standard go to smart topology, High and Ultra to the standard model.

Tripo — hosted

Five pipelines, on API v3:

A Mesh Definition for a finished sci-fi rifle, the SEC-17, rendered in the Mesh viewer with its optic, suppressor and magazine. The take picker reads 'Meshy — meshy-7'; the status bar reads 1,926,026 triangles, 1,007,796 vertices, 1 material, 190 by 18 by 84 cm, Nanite. The Stages panel on the right shows all five stage switches — Concept image, References, Mesh, Post-processing and Import — with the Concept image stage expanded on the 'Image — Tripo API v3' pipeline. Its prompt field carries guidance: describe the object, not the picture, because a photo of a crate on white with studio lighting puts the studio in the mesh. Below are the vendor's settings — model gemini-3.1-flash, template, takes — Framing toggles, and a note that it costs about 20 Tripo credits with the actual charge recorded from the task. — A vendor's settings under that vendor's own names, with the credit cost stated above the button that spends them. Note the five stage switches across the top: any of them can be turned off for this definition alone.

The prompt guidance in that field is worth stealing for your own prompts: describe the object, not the picture. "A dented steel ammunition crate with rope handles" is a prop; "a photo of a crate on white, studio lighting" is a photograph of one — and the second puts the studio in the mesh.

Photoreal (H3) — geometry quality, smart low poly, face limit, quad (returns FBX), generate parts.
Game ready (P2/P1) — face limit up to 50,000, quad.
Image, multi-view (4 angles), and Retexture.

Both generators carry a type at the top of their settings:

Type	What it sends
`image_to_model`	The default, and what existing definitions keep. Shows the picture it sends
`multiview_to_model`	Up to four views
`text_to_model`	The prompt and no picture. 10 credits cheaper on H-series and P1, and greys the picture-only options

Tripo's retexture works on any mesh, including ones Tripo did not make, by uploading it.

Test Connection reports balance

For both hosted vendors, Test Connection reports the remaining balance, not just whether the key is valid.

That is the difference between "your key works" and "you can afford the run you were about to start".

Choosing

Reach for TRELLIS when you want reproducibility, when the reference is confidential, when volume is high, or when you already own the GPU — and you have a reference image.

Reach for Meshy or Tripo for game topology generated rather than decimated, multi-image reconstruction, retexturing a mesh they did not make, or simply not owning a GPU.

Providers

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