# AI News, 19 October: DeepSeek Flash and a 3D plugin for Krita

DeepSeek updates Flash for longer coding projects. Geekatplay’s 3D Layers plugin brings poseable models into Krita. Today’s edition catches up on the 17 October model release and public plugin walkthrough.

Published: 2026-10-19. Updated: 2026-10-19. Author: XANTRANS editorial.

DeepSeek targets more complete coding projects; Geekatplay brings reusable 3D objects into a painting workflow. Hosted AI costs and local hardware requirements still matter.

## DeepSeek Flash: a coding update, available now

DeepSeek released V4.1 Flash 1017 on 17 October, updating the Flash model introduced in September. It is active in DeepSeek’s website, app and API. The company says reinforcement learning with self-feedback improves development of complete projects, including games and 3D scenes. Its announcement shows a browser racing game, a Godot project and architectural scenes as examples of the intended work.

The practical attraction for a small studio is a model that can stay with a task beyond the first code snippet. A possible use is building an interactive product demonstration from a brief, then revising its controls and layout. That is an application of the release, not a project XANTRANS has tested. DeepSeek reports faster completion and shorter outputs than its previous version, but its demonstrations and benchmark comparisons do not establish the same improvement on every job.

## Access, token prices and the separate cost of search

API users select deepseek-flash. DeepSeek’s pricing page lists a one-million-token context window, vision input and tool calling. Peak rates are $0.30 per million uncached input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; off-peak rates are half those amounts, with cached input priced separately. These are usage prices, not a fixed price for finishing an application. DeepSeek also provides MIT-licensed model weights, although downloading a large model does not remove the hardware and serving work needed to run it.

The same announcement opens standalone Search and Fetch APIs. Each endpoint costs $0.75 per thousand successful requests. Server-side Search and Fetch calls through DeepSeek Harness, Claude Code or Codex are temporarily free for DeepSeek API users, with billing starting on 31 October at 16:00 UTC. This limited promotion does not make all model usage or every search integration free. For an agent researching documentation while coding, token usage and web requests are separate parts of the bill.

## Krita: a third-party route from a flat image to a 3D layer

Geekatplay Studio’s 3D Layers is a free, MIT-licensed plugin for Krita. This is a catch-up on an independent plugin, not a new feature released by the Krita project. Its first GitHub release and v0.1.1 both date to 4 October. Creator Vladimir Chopine’s public walkthrough followed on 17 October, bringing the workflow to this edition’s attention.

The plugin imports existing 3D files or uses the active image layer or selection to request a model from Meshy, Tripo, Hitem3D or a local ComfyUI setup. A browser-based editor provides camera, pose, lighting and shadow controls before placing a rendered paint layer into Krita. Saved pose and lighting settings can be reopened from the document. A sample model lets artists try that editing workflow without first opening a generation account.

For an illustrator composing a poster, a reusable 3D prop could provide a consistent object at several angles while the surrounding composition stays in Krita. That is especially useful when the client changes the camera view after the first layout. Importing an existing model is also an option, so AI generation is not required for every object.

## What to know before using the plugin

Installation requires Krita 5.2 or newer and the packaged release ZIP. The source-code ZIP lacks the built editor. Cloud generation needs the selected provider’s API access and credits; the built-in local route needs ComfyUI, TRELLIS.2 and suitable GPU hardware. Free plugin access therefore does not imply free model generation.

The user guide warns that updating a 3D layer replaces its painted pixels. Keep paint-over work on a separate layer if it must survive a new render. The privacy policy says the selected image pixels go to the chosen provider when Generate is clicked, while the model library and API keys are stored locally. Check the provider before sending confidential client artwork. Neither this plugin nor the DeepSeek update has been independently tested by XANTRANS.

## Sources

- [DeepSeek: V4.1 Flash 1017 release, 17 October](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/news/news261017/) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [DeepSeek API changelog](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/updates/) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [DeepSeek model and Search/Fetch pricing](https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing/) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash 1017 model card and license](https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [Geekatplay 3D Layers for Krita: features and license](https://github.com/GeekatplayStudio/Krita-3D-Layers) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [Geekatplay 3D Layers: first release, 4 October](https://github.com/GeekatplayStudio/Krita-3D-Layers/releases/tag/v0.1.0) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [Geekatplay 3D Layers v0.1.1 release notes](https://github.com/GeekatplayStudio/Krita-3D-Layers/releases/tag/v0.1.1) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [Geekatplay 3D Layers user guide](https://github.com/GeekatplayStudio/Krita-3D-Layers/blob/main/docs/USER_GUIDE.md) (checked 2026-10-19)
- [Geekatplay 3D Layers privacy policy](https://github.com/GeekatplayStudio/Krita-3D-Layers/blob/main/PRIVACY.md) (checked 2026-10-19)

Prepared with AI assistance from the linked primary sources and creator reporting. XANTRANS has not independently tested these tools.


Original page: https://xantrans.com/blog/ai-news-2026-10-19-deepseek-krita/