>       Blender is -the- open source alternative to otherwise  
> expensive authoring
> tools. It has a very large, active user community and a  
> developement team that
> is in a constant effort to add features and make improvements to  
> the existing
> package. Meaning that by adopting it the Croquet community will  
> attract members
> of the Blender community (e.g. attract designers). To develope a  
> Croquet based
> creation package exclusively will stunt the growth of the community  
> both in
> numbers and infusion of ideas. The idea part is the big issue  
> because its not
> only the potential content that goes but its the features that  
> Blender coders
> haven't invented yet that go too (remeber Blender isn't going  
> anywhere).
>       As far as learning the interface and basic modeling technique  
> I would
> suggest a Croquet based Blender tutorial series housed in proximity  
> to Croquet
> proper ducumentation. that way people can enter into the Blender  
> Croquet
> relationship with knowledge of what to disregard when using Blender  
> for Croquet
> specifically. I'm frankly still unclear about the import process  
> (me not much
> of a programmer) for use with the skeletal animation package. any  
> words on this
> would be greatly appreciated. I should also mention that I'm in the  
> process of
> creating video tutorials to compliment the DMU tutorial "holy  
> trinity" series
> I've been following(posted most likely by the end of next weekend.)  
> Blender
> specific.