Thanks staigermanus from all us technically challenged folks. I didn't really mean to detract from the original intent of the post.

I've done some animations in Bryce. The ship flybys and the loader picking things up were Bryce. Decent frame rates and resolutions on a single machine took me a couple days rendering time per minute. I have great respect for anyone who did a feature length film this way. It probably represents a couple years work!