Big Buck Bunny (previously Project Peach), the world's second fully "open movie" (the first being Elephants Dream), has been released! Grab a torrent and go!

It's quite a good little short. Much more accessible, much less experimental, than Elephant's Dream. It's also totally gorgeous, and gained enough attention that its CGTalk thread got frontpaged. CGTalk's community, in the past, was somewhat notoriously snarky toward Blender for just being a hobbyist's software, but from the talk going on, it's clear that that attitude is changing.

Great news for Blender, great news for the free culture movement, and great news for blenderheads like me! The direct collaboration between the artists and developers means great new features making it into blender's codebase.

And if you like the movie? Like Blender? Like supporting free culture productions like this one? Well then, consider buying a DVD so you can support the Blender Foundation. It's good for you, good for the public at large, and you'll feel good about it at the end.

Now I'm looking forward to the next projects coming out of the Blender Institute, including Project Apricot, the Blender-based Big Buck Bunny game, Creature Factory, a blender training DVD made by the well known Blender artist Andy Goralczyk, and lastly the whatever-successor-to-peach movie they're coming out with next (I hear it involves robots). Lots to look forward to, but in the meantime my Big Buck Bunny DVD is on its way, as is the ManCandy FAQ, a Blender character animation training DVD.

Mmmm. Mancandy.