As many of you may know Blender (a favorite 3d modelling and game design system) is attempting to make a come back. After what seems like months of negotiation, Blender3D is currently raising funds to help put Blender into the public arena and pay back some of their investors.

For those of you who don't know Blender it's an amazing 3d rendering and game design/game engine for your favorite OS (including Win/Linux/BSD and they were working on Mac, iPaq, etc.). The features available rival those found in multi-thousand dollar packages and yet at one time they were selling it for a few hundred. Eventually the company went bankrupt and the IP was sat on until Ton came up with a plan to bring blender back to the community.

The brief idea of the plan is to raise 100,000 EU to pay directly to shareholders. Once paid, additional funds will be required to keep sites and the "foundation" running. The Blender code would then be publicly licensed for all to use/contribute to. NaN could then recoup prior investments by repackaging the software, selling items (tee-shirts, textures, tutorials, what-have-you), selling services or contracting. In the end I think Ton came up with a win win situation for everyone.

Think about your favorite game or software package that went away when the company owning it folded. Wouldn't you have loved the opportunity to bring it back from the dead. The best part about this is that in helping Blender you'd also be helping the community of artists that have grown to love it and create amazing artwork with it.