3D

I spent far too much time doing 3D graphics to get me through college (it was tremendous fun but I fortunately had the good sense not to make a career out of it).

Resources:

Modellers:

• gSculpt (open source, written in Python)
• Blender (free, does just about anything)
• Wings 3D (free, has POV-Ray export)
• GMax, game oriented, Windows-only
• Modo (commercial, 30-day trial available, utterly brilliant)

Ray-Tracers:

• POV-Ray - the one application I spent more CPU time running, easily.
• Yafray (free, supports distributed rendering)

Models:

• 2001 - A Space Odyssey - 3D Models in various formats.