Rigid Body Dynamics, and Object Sequence Export?

Ok, i am completely new to blender. The last time i used it was nearly a year ago for a short time. I currently use modo & XSI. However, i am looking to supplement XSI with blender to save myself the money of upgrading to Ess.

Anyway, what i want out of blender is some simple rigid body dynamic sequences. It will be some pretty simple stuff, with upwards of 30/40 objects.

I just simple want some knowledgeable opinions, on how Blenders Rigid calculations are, and how easy it will be to get this stuff setup. And most importantly, the ability to export the animation in myriad of ways. With 30/40 items i’d like to export it all as one animation, so Object Sequences would be good. But if needed, i can import many different types into XSI, then export from XSI to Object Sequence. (I use Object Sequence to render animations in modo).

Anyway, so what are your opinions? I’ve already bookmarked a few tutorials, but i’d rather not spend the time learning it for a week only to find out it doesn’t export what i need.

Thanks for reading!

Check out the tutorial about halfway down the page on baking rigid bodies:

http://www.geneome.net/index.php/blender-tutorials/

Then look at the example files available here to see what kinds of effects are possible.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Release_Notes/Notes243/Game_Engine_Physics

The Rube Goldberg devices at the Bullet page are also well worth having a look at.