Benri Load 3D Model

This is a plain file loader with one job: show a dropdown of your .fbx 3D models and hand the selected one to the pack's AnimationExtractor as a MODEL_3D object. Nothing it loads gets rendered in Python - the actual 3D rendering happens in your browser via Three.js, and this node just supplies the file. So the honest summary: if you're not using Benri Animation Extractor, you don't need this node at all. It's a dependency of the interesting one, not interesting itself.

How it works

The node reads .fbx files from a 3d_models folder and returns a Model3D - literally a small object wrapping the file path, which is the whole MODEL_3D type. The model_name dropdown is populated by scanning that folder. On node creation and on every queue it also copies your .fbx files into the pack's web/3d_models directory, because that's where the browser-side viewer fetches them from (/extensions/ComfyUI-Benripack/3d_models/<name>).

The one input, model_name, is the dropdown. The one output, 3d model (MODEL_3D), wires straight into the AnimationExtractor's model input. The pack's example workflow is literally Load3DModel → AnimationExtractor → SaveImage, and that's the intended shape.

Install

ComfyUI Manager (search "ComfyUI-Benripack") or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/blackcodetavern/ComfyUI-Benripack

then restart ComfyUI. There's nothing to download - requirements.txt is torch, numpy, and Pillow, all already present. What you must create is the 3d_models folder with your .fbx files inside, per the README. Mixamo exports are the classic source; animated models work best.

Where it bites

• Empty dropdown is the #1 complaint. The folder is registered as ./ComfyUI/3d_models - relative to the working directory, not to your ComfyUI install. Standard launchers run from the ComfyUI root, which means the pack is actually scanning ComfyUI/ComfyUI/3d_models, a nested folder that doesn't exist by default. If your dropdown is empty, check where the pack is looking relative to how you launched ComfyUI, and create the folder there.
• Files added mid-session don't show up. The dropdown is built when the node is created. Add a model and you'll often need to delete and recreate the node (or restart) to see it.
• The viewer shows nothing. The copy-to-web/3d_models step suffers from the same relative-path problem, and the browser viewer also needs internet on first load for the Three.js CDN scripts. If the AnimationExtractor iframe is blank, that's where to look - model files, path, or network.

It's a thin node with a real path-handling wart. Know that going in and you'll skip the hour of confusion the rest of us spent. If you're only here for the character animation pipeline, install the pack, drop a walk cycle in the right folder, and let the AnimationExtractor do the interesting part.