Blender is an open source 3D content creation suite.

It is an all-in-one package for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, and gaming.

User interface of Blender is formed of boxes, where all of them can be moved for the max. flexibility for not being blocked by the UI.

Advanced animations & the integrated game engine can be controlled with Python scripting which also makes developers a part of the game rather than only the designers.

A very detailed feature list can be found here.

The software has a large community & is very well-documented which makes it easier to improve your skills.

An open source game built with Blender:

Yo Frankie! is an open source game built with Blender & its integrated game engine.

The game is also like a source of information (as you can download the source files) for anyone planning to develop games with the application.

P.S. Anyone into 3D design is probably aware of Blender but this post is published considering it may be helpful to fresh 3D designers.

This is a 3D Flash gallery built with Papervision 3D.

It uses a XML as the database for image information & displays the images with a nice effect.

You can check a demo of the gallery here.

The download package includes the source files which is good for improving it and/or taking a deeper look to the use of Papervision 3D.

Update: Tutorial on creating a Papervision 3D gallery can be found here.

10 days ago, a post was published at WebResourcesDepot announcing a giveaway of 3 3D Wall Pro licences.

To remember:

3D Wall Pro is a Papervision3D powered, very good looking & interactive wall that can display:

• Images
• Youtube & streaming videos
• SWF files
• Flickr images

And, here are the winners:

• Matio (comment #15635)
• Pablo Pasqualino (comment #15529)
• Kitten (comment #15709)

Thanks to everyone for contributing & keep following WRD for fresh web resources & giveaways.

This is an open source 3D album component for Flex which is similar to the Cooliris’s (formerly PicLens) attractive interface.

The component is inspired from the 3D album tutorial of Bartek Drozdz.

The download package includes examples besides the source code for easier developing.

Info: This is a sponsored post.

FlashLoaded is giving away 3 3D Wall Pro licenses ($179.95/each) to WebResourcesDepot readers. Details of "how to winning the licenses’ can be found inside the post.

What is 3D Wall Pro?

3D Wall Pro is a Papervision3D powered, very good looking & interactive wall that can display:

• Images
• Youtube & streaming videos
• SWF files
• Flickr images

The wall can be set to be flat or at any curvature. It responds very well to mouse / scrolls & has a built-in preloader while switching from thumbnails to large images that makes the visuality flawless.

Overall 3D effect – the depth of field is very realistic & makes browsing the media a joy.

Media to be displayed is mentioned in a XML file so there is no need to republish the SWF again & again.

Application has 80+ configuration options (AS3 only) that helps you customize & make it unique.

 3D Wall Pro has some other features like:

• Ability to display a customizable video icon on video
• Customizable tooltips for each thumbnail
• Customizable player buttons
• Optional watermarks for large images that can be totally customized)

How to win the licenses?

Simply comment to this post with at least "I want the license" text besides any other comment.

Winners will be selected randomly from commenters 12 days later (8 September 2008 – Monday) with the SQL query below:

SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=480 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3

Good luck to all : ).

flashmo.com has a new free Flash image gallery named 3D Grid Photo Gallery.

Photos are presented with a beautiful 3D effect, you can switch between the thumbnails easily & see the original images by clicking on them.

Image information including the file names and explanation (shown with the original image) are configured within a XML file.

This Flash gallery is built with Papervision3D & download package includes the FLA file too.

Sandy is an open source & user friendly 3D engine for Flash (AS2 & AS3).

This 3D Flash library is able to render about 2000-5000 polygons correctly on a pretty recent computer with really correct screen resolution.

Some features of Sandy:

• Viewing volume clipping for perfect rendering
• Advanced shading effects.
• Material system to easily change your objects appearance.
• Advanced and easy object management.
• Advanced camera management.
• Complex object loading thanks to the .ASE and .WRL files parser , but also Collada and 3DS files for AS3.
• Flash player 7 to 9 compatibility.
• Both MTASC and Macromedia compilers compliant for AS2 and Flash CS3 and FlexBuilder for AS3 versions.
• Several 3D primitives.

FotoViewr is a web-based image gallery application which enables you to create 3D image galleries for your Flickr account.

You can choose to present your images from 6 different 3D gallery types.

Galleries can be created instantly by simply providing your Fickr username (no password required) and the applications lets you select which gallery to display.

After the Fickr gallery selection, FotoViewr provides you the embed code you need to insert into your webpage to display the gallery & that’s it.

Tip:

FotoViewr also has a Facebook application to use with Facebook galleries.

Templates.com, a popular website that offers templates & professional cliparts has a contest to announce to WebResourcesDepot readers.

Contest details:

Think of a slogan for Templates.com and post your slogan to the contest post in Templates.com blog. That’s all.

Contest started July 15 2008 (yesterday) & will be ending at the beginning of August 2008.

Prizes:

• 1st place: $100 cash
• 2nd place: $100 of credits in Templates.com that can be used to purchase the products.
• 3rd place: $50 of credits in Templates.com that can be used to purchase the products.
• And, each participant of this contest who has an account on Templates.com gets 4 credits for entering the contest.

Tip:

Besides the website templates they offer, in their blog, they have plenty of information about 3D models.

P.S. This post is an advertorial.

FIVe3D is an open source code for creating vector-based 3D animations with Flash.

These Flash animation classes are built with AS3 and has the following features:

• Back face culling
• Flat shading
• Z-sorting
• Space drawing functions
• Bitmap3D class
• Video3D class
• Sprite 2D class
• Letter spacing
• Text width

Tip:

FIVe3D considers a text as a collection of letters, each letter being a vector shape. To draw these vector shapes, drawing instructions are saved in a typography file.

There is free tool at the website which enables you to create typography files.