As part of my research I am working with lifelike characters, and Blender is employed for controlling and displaying such a character. Particularly I am interested in generating lip synchronisation and head motion automatically using machine learning algorithms. This paper describes the benefits of using Blender in a research setting using the talking head I developed as an example. Specifically the advantages of the open source approach are mentioned. Besides financial considerations, a strong community, easy access to upgrades and proper understanding of the software are important issues for researchers when choosing software to use in their projects. Blender has strong points in all these areas. There are also very specific advantages like python scripting, which many researcher's are very familiar with because of the prevalence of Linux in research institutes. Furthermore improvements in the area of the game engine are suggested that would directly benefit my application area.