blender

Computer Arts

Everywhere we look we are surrounded by design. It is in every website you visit, museum, street sign, product label, t-shirt, book, magazine, music album, even your makeup (if you wear one). Yes the world is getting creative and so can you. So whether you want to brush up on your skills, learn few new tricks, or start from the very beginning - the Internet is filled with great resources to help you out in your creative endeavors. With nearly 800 free tutorials, prepared by top professionals in the field, on everything ranging from 2D and 3D design, animation, web, and new media - Computer Arts website is one of such resources.

Blender

Blender is the perfect all-in one 3D modelling software. Get all the bells and whistles of a commercial animation and modeling software for ZERO dollars. Yes, as unbelievable as it sounds, Blender is an open source software under the GNU Public License. It has become the first choice software for even professional animators and has spawned great animation films as well. Films like Big Buck Bunny and the upcoming film, Sintel, was created from this groundbreaking software.
Sintel

Sintel

Sintel is a next in a series of visually stunning and captivating short animation films initiated by the Blender Foundation. The previous - Big Buck Bunny and Elephant's Dream - have been a huge success and associated The Blender name and the Foundation itself with the highest quality animation worldwide. Sintel tells a story of a young girl on a long and dangerous quest to save her best friend, a baby dragon. With plenty of time to tell the story (this short is little over 14min - the longest of all three), the team had a chance to fully showcase both their creative and technical skills and the capabilities of their animation software, Blender. Fast action scenes, fires, landscapes & complicated facial features - all you could expect from a multimillion animation studio, but done by a small, international team of creators working on open source, free software with a budget of $550k.