Below is a YouTube version of "Elephants Dream", a computer animated short movie made with the open source software Blender 3D. Since I joined IMVU, I learned that 3DS Max is the main software currently used by the animation industry. However, for po' folks like myself, 3DS Max is not very affordable. Isn't it amazing that a group of po' folks made free software that we can use to make our own animation? The movie below represents to me proof that people can do anything they set their minds to do. Please take a little time to watch it, if you haven't already seen it.

If it inspires you, you can find a download site for Blender 3D at http://blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html.

(Thank you, JazzKat, for telling me about this. . . .)

-- Optrae



In the movie, "The Making of Elephants Dream" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tyai_Y3woc0)the creators make references to another free program called the GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/). In my mind, it's the next best thing to GraphicConverter (created by Thorsten Lemke) in that it's a darn good FREE graphics editor. Again, I have to thank the buddies I've made here at IMVU for telling me about the GIMP.