Thought this might be of interest to the list, particularly after covering the Blender software and BBB movie at John's presentation.

*Big Buck Bunny* is the colorful product of the Peachhttp://www.bigbuckbunny.org/open movie project: an animated short released online and on DVD. But in addition to the 'toon itself, Peach has produced an altogether different yield: improvements to the Blender http://www.blender.org/ 3-D modeling application. Like its predecessor Project Orangehttp://orange.blender.org/, Peach pushed the open source tool forward with the demands of a real-world media production, in a way that hobbyist usage cannot.

http://www.linux.com/feature/139454