Kahootz is an Australian 3D modeling, texturing and animation program that can be installed on virtually any computer in minutes. Students from Kindergarten to Year 6 can learn how to use the software in just one full day workshop. Students can design a 3D virtual world to tell a story, sell a product, explain a scientific process, solve an historical mystery, play a game or just have fun. Unlike stop motion animation (non-linear), Kahootz uses keyframes to create highly complex and sophisticated animations.

Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often using 3D video-game technologies. In an expanded definition, it is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development. Machinima is real-world filmmaking techniques applied within an interactive virtual space where characters and events can be either controlled by humans, scripts or artificial intelligence. By combining the techniques of filmmaking, animation production and the technology of real-time 3D game engines, Machinima makes for a very cost- and time-efficient way to produce films, with a large amount of creative control.

Very smooth 3D animation of popup books

fun gruesome demo

RasTop is a molecular visualization software adapted from the program RasMol, which was initially developed by Roger Sayle. RasTop is particularly adapted for educational purposes and for the rapid analysis of macromolecules at the bench. RasTop wraps a user-friendly graphical interface around the "RasMol molecular engine".

NVIDIA® Gelato® rendering software allows anyone with an NVIDIA GPU to create stunning images fast. A hardware-accelerated, non-real-time renderer, Gelato was originally designed for the creation of 3D visual effects and animation in feature films

3D-Palace is one of the internet's oldest and largest video tutorial websites, offering video tutorials for 3ds Max, Maya, XSI, Lightwave, Wings3d, Terragen and more

Terragen is a scenery generator, created with the goal of generating photorealistic landscape images and animations. It is available for Windows and the Mac OS. At this stage in its development, Terragen is free for personal, noncommercial use.

Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering studio. It is written entirely in Java, and should be usable on any Java Virtual Machine which is compatible with J2SE 1.4 or later. Doesn't seem to have as many features as blender, but nice rendering results