For those who may be looking for an introductory 3D animation program, this came to my attention. One of my co-workers has a son in school and his school is teaching them a program called Alice. When I looked it up online it's actually a Free 3D animation program.

Though I have no experience to say whether it's good or not, it does seem to have some connection to the MySims PC game. Better yet, it's absolutely free and has a Mac, PC and Linux download for those who wish to try it out.

http://www.alice.org/ 

If anyone tries it out, please post some of your results for others to see and experience.

Enjoy!