Blender’s third short 3D animation film will be based on the work of renowned author Martin Lodewijk. The 3D film—financed via the Internet and created with open source software—will be distributed freely. Producer Ton Roosendaal from the Netherlands-based Blender Institute is working with comic book author Martin Lodewijk on Blender’s third short 3D animation movie. The film, with working title ‘Durian’, will be released and distributed as open content. Users and sponsors of the 3D program Blender will finance this project, with the main goal to further develop publicly available advanced 3D animation techniques. The production will start in September, and is expected to get a worldwide premiere in April 2010.

The Blender Institute is the studio spin-off of the Blender Foundation, which organises and facilitates online projects to further develop the open source Blender 3D creation suite. With over 3.5 million downloads annually, Blender now is one of the most popular programs worldwide for 3D artists and animators.