Of the various 3d engines in existance (not game engines, or hardware accelerated) I've only come across two decent ones. Those would be 3d Studio (viz or max) and POVRay. And only 3D Studio supports animation. (You could always do frame-by-frame animation in POVRay, but it wouldn't be all that easy) For all those with programmer's block, I have this goal: Create an open source 3d animation utility that is better than 3d Studio.
Most who read this will probably think I'm crazy or something, but for those who know the price of 3d Studio (US$3500 and up), I think that this goal is in the reach of any smart vb programmer. Sure, even I would agree that a fast renderer could be created in c++, but keeping in mind that speed is not an issue...