It's inspiration time! If you follow my Facebook page then you'll know that I like to post little snippets of inspiration that I find on the net. But it's not always created by Blender users. "Do you know any good animations created with Blender?"

It's a question that I get asked a lot, because let's face it: we all want to know if Blender has what it takes to compete with the big boys.

Well, I've been hanging out in the Blender community for the last 8 years and so I've encountered quite a lot of blender animatons. You'd be surprised at the quality of blender animations out there.

So in lieu of a tutorial this week, I've put together the ultimate blender inspiration post: A list of the most inspiring Blender Animations. Some of these you may have seen, some you haven't, but I hope that it can inspire you to get out there and create your own animation with Blender.

In no particular order, let's begin with...

1. Memory

directed by Junichi Yamamoto ホームページです http://falcon-one.net tumblr　http://yamamotojunichi.tumblr.com/ ...

Director Junichi Yamamoto won Best Short Film at the 2009 Suzanne Awards for this attention grabbing short film about a robot in a post apocolyptic world.

2. BMW 3 Promo

http://mikepan.com/motions.htm I made this with Blender 2.5

Mike Pan modelled, lit and rendered a BMW for this conceptial advertisement using Blender 2.5.

3. Transformation

The theme of this study is the mechanical transformation, a change of the form. The 5 items that have arisen here, fall back in form and process of change on analogies from nature. A sphere, the simplest geometric shape that we know, serves as a starting form.

Andre B used Blender and AutoCAD to demonstrate the beauty of mechanical transformation in this beautiful short film.

4. Mindfields

Vídeo que encontré en Blender.org Autor: Andy Goralczyk Espero que les guste. Fuentes: http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/movies/ Video that I found in Blender.org Author: Andy Goralczyk I hope that like it . Sources: http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/movies/

When Andy Goralczyk created this short film way back in 2003 it became a milestone achievement for Blender. Up until then animations produced with Blender were rather basic, but in just 5 minutes Andy demonstrated grass rendering, deserts, character animation and meteor explosions. Way to break the mold Andy!

5. Kajimba

A compilation of old and new for all the fans and the uninitiated. http://www.kajimba.com

Red Cartel (formerly known as Promotion Studios) created this animated film project aimed at the Adult comedy market. It gained lots of attention for the Sydney based studio, who then went on to create TV adverts for Bridgestone Tires.

6. Evolution

In this animated short film, a simple lifeform pursues the path of evolution, only to find out, that sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. enjoy http://www.alexglawion.com http://blog.alexglawion.com music by sia http://www.blender.org 2009 - Best Designed Short Film Award at Suzanne Animation Festival

Alex Glawion won Best Design at the 2009 Suzanne Awards for this moving short film about evolution.

7. Old Key

A short Blender 2.48 pointless animation.

A personal favourite of mine that showcases pposts, fluid simulation and very realistic rendering. The music alone is enough make me hit replay :)

8. Bounce to space

It started as an animation test, but then it became more like a bunch of tests. So here it is, I called it "Bounce to Space". And it starts where my Bounce Bounce animation test 2 ends. ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=aBzShXaoYOU ) You can download a higher resolution version here: http://www.venomgfx.com.ar/animation/bouncetospace/bouncetospace.avi NEW!: Added a "Behind the Wires!"

Pablo Vazquez somehow managed to give a bouncy ball personality in this humourous short film. He received a nomination for Best Character animation at the 2009 Suzanne Awards and later went on to work on Sintel.

9. Omega - Teaser Trailer

http://www.artificial3d.com/omega/ The nameless planet. A never-ending wasteland dominated by bizarre trash formations, dust and rock. But this desert of junk and toxic waste is not lifeless at all. Out of the scattered remains of a long forgotten culture crawl the most curious metallic creatures. OMEGA is a highly ambitious stop motion short movie project produced by Eva Franz and Andy Goralczyk together with a group of highly talented students at the university of arts and design in Karlsruhe, Germany. Sound design is done by Lorenz Schwarz.

Andy Goralczyk used a unique combination of stop motion and CG, to pull us into this post apocolyptic world of robots and trash formations. Omega is still a work in progress, but you can follow the progress on his blog here.

10. Esign

Chris Larkee created this abstract animation way back in 2005, winning Best Design at the Suzanne Awards.

11. Overheated

Based on the style of Pixar's "Cars", this old car in the desert has nothing to do but complain. Created in Blender 3D, edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, rain effect added with Adobe After Effects

David Ward created this hilarious spoof of Pixar's Cars about a grumpy car stuck in the sun.

12. The Cup

After the five month regular course some students work in this animation piece during three months, all characters are based on psl-man rig http://vimeo.com/channels/psl#9032686 Made in Blender From Pepe-Scool-Land Channel http://vimeo.com/channels/psl2.50

The students at Pepe-Shcool-Land created this hilarious short film in just three months using Blender. They received a well earned nomination for Best Short film at the recent 2010 Suzanne Awards.

13. Dikta - Goodbye

Miðstræti studio was contacted by the Icelandish band Dikta to create a music video for their popular song. The band gave complete artist license to the studio who pulled through to create a unique styled animation about a world made of paper.

14. Stop

So its possible to do something with Blender after all.

Eoin Duffy won Best Design at the 2007 Suzanne Awards for this attention grabbing music video. It's a perfect example of why visuals aren't everything when it comes to creating a powerful video.

15. Chicken Chair

Blender Animation

Bassam Kurdali created this iconic short film way back in 2003, and has stood the test of time with it's brilliant character animation.

16. Lighthouse

Animated short film by Red Cartel

Red Cartel created this short film for American insurance firm Liberty Mutual as a series of online short film around the theme 'responsibility'. It is regarded by many as one of the finest Blender's animations to date.

17. Project London: Benny's Fuel and Repair

This clip was created and released to attract Blender Artists to our project; the indie scifi action film, Project London, written and directed by Ian Hubert. This is the first clip that we released from the film and we are darn proud of the work everyone did to make this film really cool. For all things Project London, visit http://www.projectlondonmovie.com.

Project London is an independant, feature length, live action movie that uses blender for all it's VFX work. It's still a work in progress but you can follow their progress here.

18. Lista

"The List", Diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Graphic Design Department, 2010. Supervisor: Hieronim Neumann. Made with Blender 2.49b and Yafaray. Animacja dyplomowa z Pracowni Animacji, Wydział Grafiki, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Warszawie, 2010. Promotor: Hieronim Neumann. Blender 2.49b i Yafaray.

Pawel Lyczkowski created this unique stop motion styled animation and won Best Short Film at the recent 2010 Suzanne Awards. Well deserved!

19. Suite Noire

This is a research for a starting title of a french tv show. This was never on air because the client didn't think it was appropriate. I did this all by myself on blender. Enjoy !

Matray created this high impact opening for a TV show. Apparently the client deemed the intro "inappropriate" and it was never aired. I have no idea what the show was about but if I saw this intro I'd be hooked!

20. A Glimpse of Light

Alex Glawion created this super slick animation and received a nomination for Best Design at the 2009 Suzanne Awards. As with most of Alex's work, the music and visuals go hand in hand to create a beautiful work of art.

21. Tape-à-l'oeil

Tape-à-l'oeil est un court métrage d'animation 3d créé sous le thème "Le cinéma et moi". Créé dans le cadre d'un projet final d'étude, l'animation a été réalisée en quatre semaines, les rendus et le montage ont été terminés durant la 5e semaine de production. Si vous avez des questions, ou commentaire, écrivez moi à: jsguillemette [at] hotmail.com (remplacer le [at] par un @) ou visité simplement notre site web: www.montagestudio.org "Meets the eye" is a 3d animation short movie created under the theme of "Cinema and myself". The short was created as a end of study project. The animation itself was created in 4 weeks while the rendering the editing was finalised in the fifth week of production. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at: jsguillemette [at] hotmail.com (just replace the [at] with a @) or simply visit our website at: www.montagestudio.org Réalisé par/directed by Jean-Sébastien Guillemette Musique/Music: Derek McTavish Mounce

Jason-Sean Guillemette created this artist short film about the topic 'Cinema & Me'. The lighting, compositing and rendering are all top notch.

22. John el esquizofrénico Music Video

Música: Calle 13 http://www.lacalle13.com Diseño y animación en 3D: Juan Carlos Montes http://www.moxstudios.com Personajes en 3d, animación y rendering en Blender 3d 3d Rigs Pascal GABUS http://kiopaa3d.pagesperso-orange.fr/ Animación de apertura y cierre: NEODG http://www.neodg.com.ar

MoxStudios put an incredible amount of work into this catchy music video. It won Best Design at the 2010 Suzanne Awards.

23. Babioles Trailer

This is a trailer for an upcoming TVshow. This is all made with blender and the sound design is made by David Coutures.

Matray composited this cute CG characted onto live backplates for the TV show pilot, Babioles.

24. Taste Lab

A short comedy set in a chemistry lab. Production time: 5 months Software: Blender 2.5 Alpha 0 Budget: 0

Chris Burton created this humourous short film about two rival professors in a race to create the ultimate drink. For his hard work, Chris received a nomination for Best Short film at the 2010 Suzanne Awards.

25. Klaas Vaak (TV intro)

Ken jij Klaas Vaak? Die vriendelijke, magische kabouter? Klokslag kinderbedtijd vliegt hij uit, samen met zijn trouwe uil Oehoe Houdou. Hij strooit zijn beroemde slaapzand over de daken en zorgt dat je de mooiste dromen droomt. Elke avond keert hij na afloop terug naar zijn zandkasteel waar de zandkabouters ademloos toekijken hoe Klaas Vaak met zijn magische zandtekeningen de mooiste sprookjes tot leven brengt.

Red Cartel created another amazing piece of work for the opening of the dutch TV show called Klaas Vaak (if you're easily scared don't watch past :32).

26. HapiLoli

100% Blender2.49b Thank you very much for comments everyone. sorry, I can not reply. I can not much English.

Japanese artist Tomo, proves that anime styled animation is 100% possible using blender in this cute animation of a girl dancing. Be sure to check out his followup video: ルイズ／恋愛サーキュレーション

27. Death Grind

My first short film. Please try our ball+gems game: iOS: http://itunes.apple.com/app/gather-the-gems!/id482568422?mt=8 Mac: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gather-the-gems!/id580206807?l=hu&ls=1&mt=12

Endre Barath created this thought provoking short about the effect that television has on our minds. He received a nomination for Best Short Film at the 2009 Suzanne Awards.

Honourable Mentions

Some of these videos are more 'tests' than animations, but they are still powerful enough to deserve a mention.

Japanese Camera Mapping by JuL J
Blender car game test by Mike Pan
Dynamic Paint + Indirect Lighting = Awesomeness by miikah
Massive Blender fluid simulation by Mike Pan

That concludes this list of inspiring Blender animations! I deliberately left out Sintel, Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream as I wanted to focus on the lesser known independantly produced animations :)

Which animation was your favourite? Did I miss an animation? Write your comment below!

27 Inspiring Blender Animations That Will Make Your Jaw Drop