Many of you are aware that Blender is my modeller/renderer of choice and they have been for the past few years pushing forward the developlment by a series of open movies. This is the third of the open movies the blender institute have funded each movie improving the core technology within blender this time they did the big 2.5 update that completely rewrote the core interface as well as a host of new features like volumetrics indirect lighting and updates to hair and particle engines.
The movie itself is pretty fun a little story of dragons and a street girl. Fairly short but nice enough it's feels like one of those pixar shorts you get before a film albiet with a more serious tone. It looks pretty amazing in parts and it's a nice show piece for what open source free software can accomplish in the right hands. I pre bought a DVD of it (as part of their funding process they presell the dvd of the film which includes all the production files, you also get your name in the credits) and I look forward to taking a look at how it was put together.
I can't wait to see what they do for their next open film blender is coming on leaps and bounds by this process and some of the technology in the pipe looks to give even more possibilities to what it can simulate and render.