Step One--Learning Blender

So Zach and I are about to begin learning our second major 3D platform, and for the sake of his thesis we're going to do everything in Blender. The end goal is that he will possess a thesis on open-source development and I'll have one on modular rigging through Python. To creatively express our technical research, we plan on creating a 3D short. There are many ideas flying around about this that we will post about when we get nailed down.

At first Google, it does not appear that there are any good online resources for Blender. There are some really good learning materials out there however, you just need to be lucky enough to stumble across them. I figure that this is a good place to post where we're finding all of our information so that in the end we can make a sweet film.

--This first link is an amazing resource and I highly recommend everyone download all of the issues. They cover every basic element of the 3D pipeline.
http://www.blenderart.org/

--Blender Summer of Documentation : These are some very in depth resources about various topics in Blender--from Character Animation and Rigging to procedural textures. Some of the resources stretch to almost 200 pages.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Tutorials/BSoD

--Blender Groupie TV
These guys have a podcast in addition to their online TV channel. Very helpful although slightly more advanced.
http://blendergroupie.blip.tv/

There are many other things that we are looking at, such as a set of DVD's from the people who created Big Buck Bunny, and we will post about them when we get ahold of them