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CAD: There's Milkshape. It's game-oriented, though. Audio: There's Audacity, and Cinelerra is a movie editor with some good audio capabilities. CGI: Sorry, nothing off the top of my head. I'm sure it's out there somewhere, though.

First off, if you are wanting to teach, set aside time when you've learned the program to create some multimedia tutorials. Get camtasia studio and record tutorials, export them to flash. It's better and fast than writing a book with screenshots.

If you are wanting some linux movies, check out xvidcap.

It's a great idea to promote and use open source software. Some might say that those skills will have no marketability because the apps are open source and not industry standard. However, when teaching an art class and including computers, all you have to do is emphasize "Now this is free so you can use it at home. Photoshop is what most people in business use, but the same principles apply." Kids will remember that and they will pick up the right app if they are really interested in that field.

Save the money by using OSS and buy some really nice digital cameras for everyone to use. Have the kids go out and capture the world. They'll love it. Then bring the pictures into gimp, try different things from contrasts to layermasking, and painting. Create meaningful collages. If they learn the gimp, they'll pick up photoshop, and then freehand, etc. They'll be fine. I'd recommend gimp over photoshop elements any day.

Here are learning links I've found on blender. This is really a cool program to teach, but I know it will be difficult for some people to pick up. Teach them how to create a text object, write their name and render it with different light setups. Future filmmakers will really appreciate it I think.

http://www.bl3nder.com/tutorials/ http://www.ctr.co.at/swf/3ds_max_1_zb1_num_calc.ht m http://www.blenderama.com/index.php?id=276 http://www.vrotvrot.com/xoom/tutorials.html http://blendedmind.i8.com/tutorials.html#tutorials http://www.blender.org/modules/documentation/htmlI / http://www.tutorialguide.net/software/blender/ http://www.blender3d.com/cms/Tutorials.243.0.html http://www.tltsu.ru/archive/blender/BlenderTutoria lPart3_.pdf http://project-blender.onlinehome.de/ http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blender/ http://www.ingiebee.com/Blendermania/tutorial_list .html http://renderosity.com/ http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/0 4/30/217225 http://www.geocities.com/paulthepuzzles/aardvarks. html http://blender.excellentwhale.com/ http://www.selleri.org/Blender/ http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/index.html http://www.elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11202 6#112026 http://vrotvrot.com/xoom/tutorials.html http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/page

Hopefully there will eventually be some sort of user-submission of models, so we can do this sort of thing. However, the problem with this is that everyone has to have the model file on their computer...a dynamic update system wouldn't be too hard to implement though.

Milkshape is a shareware modeler that is designed specifically for making models for games/real time applications. It imports and exports all major game model formats(md3, md2, etc..) as well as the professional model formats(3ds,lwa, etc..) It has support for bone based animation and plugins. I'm currently using it for my own engine and its served me quite well.

Take a look at gmax and Milkshape3D

Choices are getting slightly better with some free and/or inexpensive modeling tools.

The top of my list has to be Blender Creator which is a free (as in beer but not speech) and sports a very impressive features list.

OpenGL Renderer
Standard Polygon Primitive modeling (w/lattices etc)
Bez Curves
Nurbs
Multi texturing (up to 16 per object)
Texture UV Mapping
Environment Mapping
Bump Mapping
Spec Mapping
Catmull Clark Surfaces for nicely subdivding meshes
Bones and Armature system for character animation
Particle Effects
Global Illumination with radiosity capabilities
Super fast renderer
Very very low system requirements and compact size
Python Plugin Interface for extending Blender
Large and enthusiastic user base eager to answer questions
...and lots of other stuff I'm forgetting

speed bumps for Blender are as follows:

Absolutely bizarre (but incredibly efficient once you learn it) user interface
Limited import and export capabilities (import/export of DXF and VRML) although I hear that improving this area is their 'top priority' to fix

So if after trying a few of the tutorials you decide you like Blender do yourself a favor and pick up the Official Blender Guide. Chances are your local "mega mart type book store" has a copy and you'll save yourself tons of aggravation and time.

Course if you're just into mods for quake type games etc then you should try Milkshape ($20 last time I checked) but its windows only and I didn't particularly like the interface. One the bright side it can import/export just about any kind of format you can come up with.

Discreet has some freebie as well called Gmax which I've never tried mostly cos I despise 3DS' UI. Its supposedly a character designer / level editor for the mod community to play around with.

A full-featured free 3d editor called MilkShape is availible here. Windows only though.

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