20 ms·

Microsoft 3D Movie Maker Source Code

630 points by aaronbrethorst 4y ago

steve_coral 4y ago
I still have the original CDs for this. I booted it up the other week and much to my surprise it still ran quite well on Windows 10.
- voidfunc 4y ago
  Microsoft doesn't always get it right, but they do try very hard to be backwards compatible for a very very long time.
  - steve_coral 4y ago
    It's true. Windows is essentially a museum of sorts
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Dear God I need to find my CD of it and try. Good that I didn't skip the DVD drive in my second latest PC build ...
  - tombert 4y ago
    Not 100% sure of the legality of this now with the open-sourcing, but 3DMM is readily available on the internet archive: https://archive.org/details/3dmoviemaker https://archive.org/details/3dmoviemaker
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      Thanks will try did not find the CD the casing was empty ...
arriu 4y ago
Is unreal engine the modern day equivalent of this? Is there something else that is more approachable?
- dagmx 4y ago
  Source Filmmaker and Unity are pretty approachable too
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    SFM is definitely the closest modern equivalent that comes to mind.
    - crate_barre 4y ago
      SFM is a real tool. People have made production quality stuff on it: https://youtu.be/PU1fu6ErBoA https://youtu.be/PU1fu6ErBoA
      - smoldesu 4y ago
        Listen, I have a real soft-spot for SFM and the people who use it. Valve made some really quality stuff with it in their hayday, and every once in a while I'll see a Saxxy winner that really knocks my socks off. Splicing stock footage with SFM-rendered content is not "production quality" though, and generally speaking their render pipeline has aged the worst of all. TF2 and SFM looked great in 2008, the highly stylized graphics did a good job to separate it from the pack. Nowadays it just looks corny though. Maybe it's because I've just seen so much SFM by now, but I think the bigger issue is that the textures and texture filtering just looks bad these days. If SFM wants to remain relevant, it's going to need a lot of work put into SFM2 to get it ready for a new era of animation.
        pelorat 4y ago
        I mean S2FM is already usable, just look at TheParryGod's stuff on YT.
password4321 4y ago
Now to set up GitHub Actions to build it... ;)
- tombert 4y ago
  I'm waiting for the ports to Mac and Linux. I doubt it will happen but a guy can dream...
drewtato 4y ago
Related: https://github.com/foone/BRender-v1.3.2 https://github.com/foone/BRender-v1.3.2 Context: https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1521583448795672576 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1521583448795672576
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Blown away foone managed to just ask for this... and get it... within a month timeframe. Gives me some hope we can get more ancient software open sourced in the future.
  - shanselman 4y ago
    We do try.
    - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
      Visual Basic 6.0? (I mostly kid, I know this has been enough of an ask for enough years if it was similarly trivial it would've probably happened by now.) Thanks for your work on open sourcing awesome old Microsoft stuff!
      - rektide 4y ago
        Someone's attempting a recreation. "Rad Basic: 100% compatible with VB6"[1]. [1] https://www.radbasic.dev/ https://www.radbasic.dev/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31202696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31202696 (3 points, 4 days ago, 0 comments)
      - exikyut 4y ago
        Sigh I was just about to ask about MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 98, that sort of thing, and I think I figured out a bit more of the answer. 1. <Company> releases source code to old useless thing that's only of historical interest 2. Ginormous community forms around it (see also: retrocomputing in general, niche hyperfocused interest groups around old software like this) 3. Community basically picks old useless thing up off the ground and rocket-boosts it into being fun and genuinely usable 4. Now-useful thing becomes a way to do cool stuff; it is now relevant!!1 This phenomena can only work if one very specific thing is true: if the functionality made available by the software in question is closed-ended. DOS 3.30 is closed-ended; it doesn't support all the APIs of DOS 6. This software is also closed-ended, in the sense that there would be no real-world value gained from trying to make this specific codebase line up with contemporary standards (of code design, or render quality, etc etc); such a project would universally be easier to start from scratch, even if it was using this as a base for inspiration. Community effort to fix something like this without completely ship-of-Thesesus-ing it will get a decent bit of the way there, but (being a tad objective) it'll have a stopping point. I think this scope limitation is a key part of what makes it possible to release old stuff like this. Win98 and VB6 and things of a similar class have both huge niche focus and interest by the retrocomputing community, AND they are fundamentally open in the sense that Win98 is an entire operating system, and VB6 is an entire development environment. The purpose of both products is fundamentally to enable. To enable you to run software and enable you to build it. So, couple all that potential with the reception the release would bring, and... oops, the community forked Win98 and made it run on the latest CPUs and added VM window resize support and started backporting random NT (and brand-new) APIs to make it do new and random stuff. And then they went and fixed all the bugs in VB6's runtime and added a JIT (!) and WASM support and ThEn ThE FaTeFuL GiThUb IsSuE #42 GoT OpEnEd WhErE SoMeOnE AcTuAlLY OuTlInEd HoW To SuCcEsSfUlLy PoRt iT tO LiNuX. The other problem is that things like old versions of Windows or Visual Basic are of a scale that's an order of magnitude larger than smaller releases like the one presented here, making community enablement that much more impactful - maybe not to the full order of magnitude, but to an extent that is nontrivial... and might hit the tipping-point of virality that would really attract attention to the project and get it front-and-center into the pop-culture limelight. My working theory is that there's isn't anything fundamentally wrong with this, to the extent that it's quite possible legal wouldn't fundamentally be totally against it. Rather, you have <Company> officially open sources thing -> community promptly hefts thing onto their collective shoulders -> thing is now relevant -> thing's open-endedness combined with its relevance turns it into a serious contender for contemporary mindshare -> everyone starts looking at <company> and making noises about how the original release was technically official -> people start asking why <company> "has abandoned *thing*" D: If anyone could shoot down this idea and let me know it is actually some other type of legal ramification (that maybe I could get further details about in person someday) I would be very appreciative. EDIT: This is now at 0. Okay... interested to hear more details. (Edit2 just before it locks: it's back to 1 at least heh)
trinovantes 4y ago
> The code does not build with today's engineering tools, and is released as-is. Unfortunate given Microsoft's track record of maintaining backwards compatibility
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  Microsoft has an amazing track record of binary compatibility, not source. Although that does imply that you should be able to run an old compiler and make it work.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  It's not surprising considering how many major versions of Windows have since passed. XP and 7 each broke large swaths of software, for mostly good reasons, despite all sorts of work to maintain compatibility. The important thing is it's a starting point. foone specifically indicated a desire to update and extend the software, which means at minimum, a fork that runs on modern platforms.
- jeffwilcox 4y ago
  I feel like it's close... but it's pretty hard to take engineers off of modern day projects to go figure out what's needed to make an almost 30-year old set of source code to build. I imagine some folks will get this building soon that are smarter than we are!
  - zamadatix 4y ago
    As nice as it is to see some of the old source code released for nostalgia reasons (the old winfile also comes to mind) it's been even nicer to see some of the modern Microsoft apps make their way out as well. I've been able to directly interact with e.g. Windows Terminal development in ways traditional closed development would have just left me frustrated and disappointed.
    - jeffwilcox 4y ago
      Happy to learn more, ping me in some form. The Windows Terminal is building a community on GitHub and it's pretty active.
tombert 4y ago
I cannot tell you how many hours I spent playing with 3DMM… once I figured out that you could make a gun by using a 3D “L” shape, my cartoons got violent and weird and I absolutely loved it, and I kept playing with it well into my teenage years. I should see if I still have my CDs for it somewhere so I can run it in a VM.
- _s_a_m_ 4y ago
  :D
  - Inviz 4y ago
    3D movie maker was one my first computer experiences ever. The maskot and the intros, the movies and the scenes, some creepy looking uncanny cg backgrounds and music. Peak 90s stuff. Amazing product!
    - tombert 4y ago
      I feel like some of my best "gaming memories" are with things that aren't even entirely games at all, but instead creation tools tailored towards kids. I spent many hours with 3D Movie Maker, but also the Spiderman Cartoon Maker, Kidpix, the PS1 version of RPG Maker, and more recently Pico-8. I think there's a viscerally satisfying feeling you get when making something that you just don't get when you're playing someone else's game. 3DMM might have had 1% of the budget of a modern Call of Duty game, but I'll remember the time I spent playing 3DMM substantially more.
      - anthk 4y ago
        Ditto with text adventures. You can write one with Inform6 and the Inform Beginners' Guide with ease (and now with inform7 too). You don't need to know how to draw or sketch. Just write. Inform7 it's a logical clause based language, that's it, you just state conditions and the compiler makes your adventure. Inform6 it's object oriented but it's the easiest OOP language ever, you can create a 10x10 "room" size town in minutes and defining the objects can take less than an hour. The logic and debug, well, maybe some days/weeks, but far less than a graphical game. And the most crazy stuff: after that, you'll game will run under DOS, Amiga, Android, GNU/Linux, BSDs, Windows, IOS, everywhere where a Z-Machine interpreter like frotz exists. Opening your adventime game on a DOS/Amiga emulator and watching it running in the same way as your desktop PC it's astounding. When I opened my prototype (In Spanish, thanks to INFSP6 for Inform6) under UAE with Amiga OS 3.1 and Frotz, and later, Frotz for DOS under DOSBox, the feeling was incredible.
olliej 4y ago
I recall thinking this was absolutely amazing on my uncle’s ¿486? Now I’m not so sure it holds up :)
matthewhartmans 4y ago
This is incredible! I used to spend days making movies with this when I was a kid. Short clips and random stuff just to get laughs from friends and family. There is a community still going around this where people post there movies and stuff - https://www.3dmm.com/ https://www.3dmm.com/ Oh wow, good times!
- Lorin 4y ago
  Same! I used to run a site for highly rated 3DMM movies that begun becoming popular until someone flagged it for copyright infringement and Xoom terminated it without warning while I was on vacation, tried showing it to friends but it wouldn't load :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xoom_(web_hosting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xoom_(web_hosting) I then attempted to make a technically complex movie myself, and of course my HDD crashed - seems as a kid I could never catch a break when it came to technology :P
LowLevelMahn 4y ago
Visual C++ 2.x can be downloaded here: https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x hope they will every release the good old Basic Compiler bascom/basrun stuff
warent 4y ago
Can someone explain to me why Microsoft file and directory names are always so hideous? Like, what in the world is cd12, cd2, cd3, cd9? Somehow it gets worse when you click into them.
- shanselman 4y ago
  That’s not related to Microsoft the company. That’s a result of the archivist systems that I had to mess with to get this stuff restored from tapes and CDs. I didn’t feel like changing it too much. So blame me.
  - yuchi 4y ago
    Thanks for your effort. Having a piece of my childhood made open source makes me so happy.
  - pseudosavant 4y ago
    Consider yourself blamed Scott! jk
  - warent 4y ago
    My comment definitely came across as rude and I apologize. Thanks for your work and for taking the time to provide a thoughtful answer :) I'd probably also have left it just as you did.
    - shanselman 4y ago
      :)
  - jml7c5 4y ago
    I prefer it this way! It's better to share the "rawest" backups and fix them up after they've been dumped into version control so that a history of changes is available.
- zamadatix 4y ago
  Being near 30 years old a lot of the naming looks hideous because it was developed with 8.3 filenames. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-fscc/18e63b13-ba43-4f5f-a5b7-11e871b71f14 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols...
Scalene2 4y ago
If an updated version that easily runs on present day hardware gets released then the memes made with it could be glorious.
- exikyut 4y ago
  *Clicks the star and watch buttons on GitHub for you* Seriously. It'll likely both take a little while, yet be usable much sooner than you expect.
  - arusahni 4y ago
    The fact that the repo is archived indicates to me that this is just a code dump. You'll need to monitor the forks for people's attempts to resurrect it.
    - longtimelistnr 4y ago
      Follow/check @foone on twitter that’ll be the easiest way as they are responsible for this happening and will probably work really hard to get it running as fast as possible. They’ve been tweeting about this forever but all the sudden last month their tweet thread picked up steam and a month later it’s open source
jchw 4y ago
This is astounding. Truly above expectations. I hope it’s not the last such stunning open sourcing from Microsoft, as there is so much historical stuff I’d really like to explore, but I can’t complain.
trog 4y ago
who are you and what have you done with Microsoft
- oblio 4y ago
  They're still there. This org chart is as accurate as it was in 2011: https://www.cultofmac.com/102917/apple-ms-google-etc-imagined-as-fun-org-charts/ https://www.cultofmac.com/102917/apple-ms-google-etc-imagine... One group is moving forward and another one is putting ads in the OS...
jszymborski 4y ago
Anyone have any favourite videos made with this?
- paisawalla 4y ago
  One example, taken from the forum posted in another comment: https://youtu.be/JYEYP-iTNHc https://youtu.be/JYEYP-iTNHc
- poser-boy 4y ago
  Lot's of ironic meme-style videos from 10+ years ago. (NSFW language) - https://youtu.be/PGJKeESLBpQ https://youtu.be/PGJKeESLBpQ - https://youtu.be/X0pEBE_eYdU https://youtu.be/X0pEBE_eYdU - https://youtu.be/H8Nbd4yO1qw https://youtu.be/H8Nbd4yO1qw (this is a reup from 2009) - https://youtu.be/VqqRRWIYiy8?t=16 https://youtu.be/VqqRRWIYiy8?t=16 Actually there is an entire playlist you can enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_7_xaiHt-pegi1SwC1tVgXosGCrHqjKk https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_7_xaiHt-pegi1SwC1tV...
  - djmips 4y ago
    Wow that first one is really surprising for it's proficient cinematic vocabulary. The shots are great juxtaposed against this very rudimentary 3D tool. Neat!
    - poser-boy 4y ago
      Yes that one impressed me the most. A random aside. Note on the videos from 2006/7, you've got comments from the last year joking that the authors are time-travelers spreading Gen-Z humor to the past.
- Risse 4y ago
  Blue Shell Incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUT2kKZeUpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUT2kKZeUpo
- samoyy 4y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAXioRNYy4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAXioRNYy4s A classic.
sundvor 4y ago
This is awesome on so many levels. The bottom part of the read me says Jez San of Argonaut agreed to MIT the BRender part of it. Argonaut rang a bell, and sure enough - Jez developed Starglider, one of my all time favourite games on the Amiga. I can still remember it today, nearly four decades later: It was the first time I visited a new friend, who was the first in our neighbourhood to get the Amiga. He fired up Starglider- and I was simply blown away. My C64 didn't cut it anymore - I just had to get the Amiga. An involvement in the Norwegian demo scene followed. This later had a big impact on my career as a SWE; thanks very much for this, Jez, if you're here!
- lproven 4y ago
  Oh yes, Starglider was stunning at the time. But wireframe only, I think? I think Starglider 2 was inspired in part by Zarch on the Archimedes, and the free Lander demo that came with every Archie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFwpsb75omg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFwpsb75omg It is hard to put into words how amazing it was to see this running, live and playable, on a home computer in 1987. Jez San also co-designed the SuperFX 3D accelerator chip in the SNES game Starfox. That evolved into the ARC RISC CPU family. An ARC core was the Intel Management Engine chip in Intel CPUs before they switched to an x86 ME controller running Minix 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Hardwa... And that ARC core ran ThreadX, which is the same OS that runs on the GPU of every Raspberry Pi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreadX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreadX San offered me a job once, nearly 30Y ago. I should have accepted it. :-D
  - JezSan 4y ago
    am sure you did fine without that job ;-) btw, the arc core got used in lots of things that you never hear about... like in Sandisk memory cards (no relation), and various set top box chips (mpeg etc), and wifi chips (at the time, most intel wifi chips used arc)
  - JezSan 4y ago
    interesting anecdotes about argonaut design methodology... pt 2 we used the opposite approach to design the Super FX chip (we called it the Mario chip - likely the first ever gpu) Carl & Pete would write code to do 3d math and render polygons... and write and re-write the code hundreds of times, using an imaginary assembler language. they would invent new instructions on the fly to let their code get tighter. they would keep coming up with new instructions, new registers, new ways of forming instructions and referencing registers etc... until the code was the tightest... and THEN, we designed a microprocessor from scratch to execute those instructions. Also, likely the opposite way that microprocessors were designed... because (in the past) the designers had no idea what their cpus were going to be used for, whereas we knew what we wanted to achieve, so got to use software to drive the hardware design. this was the first time that a cpu was able to be designed using programmable gate arrays. literally Ben & Rob could make a change to the hardware design - the netlist, and email it off to the usa, and actel would Fedex back the next day a working chip for us to try out. this was before you could program your own fpga's yourself (and Xilinx at the time wasn't large enough to fit a whole microprocessor). this iterative approach allowed us to design the optimum 'gpu' for the task.
o_m 4y ago
This game got me into creating stuff with computers, which lead to me becoming a developer later on. So many good memories from this.
- blarneystone 4y ago
  Same here! I owe my livelihood to this game
liquid153 4y ago
memories
liquid153 4y ago
Does anyone remember Pandora Box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMeidL4xZ2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMeidL4xZ2A
peterashford 4y ago
Starglider was brilliant =)
amir-h 4y ago
Seems like each source file has a comment saying: Primary Author : *** Review Status: Reviewed I wonder what was their process for version control and code review back in the day?
- jeffwilcox 4y ago
  With the exception of a specific engineers who we checked with, our process includes masking developer aliases, names, etc. It does seem that version control was a lot more basic back then. We're seeing comments on Twitter that it's likely this was under the SLM system, which includes holding an exclusive lock on specific files. (Some history here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180122-00/?p=97855 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180122-00/?p=97...)
pkamb 4y ago
"I'll trade a magic trick for a vase."
- AndrewOMartin 4y ago
  Hey hey! That was excellent! What would you like to do now?
  - matthewhartmans 4y ago
    hmmm i'll check to see if there's time before dinner
svag 4y ago
This is interesting at the bottom of the readme file Jez also offered this interesting BRender anecdote in an email: When Sam Littlewood designed BRender, he didn’t write the code. And then document it. The way most things were built at the time. First, he wrote the manual. The full documentation That served as the spec. Then the coding started.
- johnchristopher 4y ago
  Right now, at work, I am getting insane with a task of re implementing some web forms that talk to shinier API. No documentation "just read the previous ruby server side validation code and put it on the js front-end". So I am hunting for hints and people to to be sure the code does what it intended to do. And I get cup sized eyes when asking for documentation :D.
  - cfn 4y ago
    You are lucky, I am reimplementing CRM functionality on a web api by looking at SQL Server Profiler!
    - johnchristopher 4y ago
      Haha, wtf :D.
    - teh_klev 4y ago
      Holey moley, that's just plain cruel.
    - smaudet 4y ago
      Why wouldn't you reach for a decompiler first? I guess perhaps you are working with some very obfuscated code, still if you are black box profiling code it might make sense to crack open that box as much as possible. Unless what you are working with is DRM-level "performs like cow dung in a blender" horrifically inefficient, I can't imagine it is obfuscated that badly. At any rate, hopefully you are paid well for it, reverse engineering is difficult, to say the least.
BugWatch 4y ago
Oh my FSM! This brings some very, very early, and almost forgotten memories! Of fiddling with limited demo version of this, and it seeming so magical to my kid's eyes way back then... :)
Aissen 4y ago
Congrats, this type of release is really hard to do and usually gains you nothing apart from that impossible to measure reputation. Kudos to all involved.
spacechild1 4y ago
So many childhood memories! What a shame I didn't archive my movies back then. Would be so much fun watching them 20 years later as an adult...
Lorin 4y ago
Fun fact, you can blame this project for the public release of Comic Sans ;)
- tombert 4y ago
  Wait is that true? I had always heard that was Microsoft Bob's gift to the world...though clearly I'm wrong according to Wikipedia [1]. > The infamous Comic Sans font also made its first appearance in 3D Movie Maker [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Movie_Maker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Movie_Maker
  - gattilorenz 4y ago
    You're both right :) "Comic Sans was designed by Vincent Connare to fit the theme of Microsoft Bob and was inspired by comics like Watchmen and Batman. It would have fit Bob’s animated interface, but it wasn’t completed in time for the release. Given the short lifespan of Bob, we’d never learn to use Windows in Comic Sans. The font did get included in later Microsoft programs starting with Microsoft 3D Movie Maker." From https://uxdesign.cc/the-ugly-history-of-comic-sans-bd5d07f8ce81 https://uxdesign.cc/the-ugly-history-of-comic-sans-bd5d07f8c...
    - tombert 4y ago
      Not to get too far off on a tangent, but I am going to take a slightly unpopular opinion: Comic Sans is amongst the most readable fonts. It sheds almost all notions of trying to be "pretty", and thus the letters are distinct and easy to read. I wouldn't submit a research paper in Comic Sans, but I do happily use it for nearly everything internal to my computer (e.g. my coding font, my Obsidian notebooks, slack, etc), and I'm not even dyslexic, which apparently it's considered really good for. I feel like it's almost a shame that it has been deemed as "unprofessional", I think largely because of people using it in places that it doesn't really fit (e.g. the aforementioned research papers). I think there exists an alternate universe where people appreciate Comic Sans for the treasure that it is, and I suppose I can thank both MS Bob and 3DMM for it :).
ChrisRR 4y ago
This is a pleasant surprise. I absolutely lived on 3DMM and 3DMM.com (which is still going) They already did great jobs with expanding the tools via RE but I wonder if anyone will start adding new features.
marcodiego 4y ago
Congrats, microsoft! I don't know how popular, useful or powerful this software is but, although not a microsft flagship, I love when companies open source their software that is no longer a huge profit margin. At the least it is better than see it dying deep into a drawer.
- oaiey 4y ago
  Absolutely. I also love it for exactly that reason. It is no longer a financial asset, it is no longer competetive advantage and not a unique jumpstart which can lead to one.
_s_a_m_ 4y ago
I hope someone creates a modern build which can run on current Windows versions.
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  That's literally one of the goals of foone (https://twitter.com/foone https://twitter.com/foone), who has been asking Microsoft to release the source code for years. Other goals, as far as I remember, are removing limitations on number of objects etc., the ability to export in a modern video format, and different resolutions.
- xeromal 4y ago
  It looks like if you have the CDs, it still runs on Windows 10.
als0 4y ago
I'd like to take this opportunity to share that the Steamed Hams meme was recreated in 3D Movie Maker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbQHE4kVFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbQHE4kVFk
foo5675763 4y ago
Old-school MS code! :)
wizzledonker 4y ago
I've managed to get it to build about half way; 1. In linux 2. Install wine 7.5 (other versions may work, this is what I used) 3. Create a 32-bit wineprefix on a *case-insensitive* ext4 drive (https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2020/08/27/using-the-linux-kernel-case-insensitive-feature-in-ext4/ https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2020/08/27/usin...) 4. Download MSVC 2.0 (https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x), extract and install it into the 32-bit wineprefix - Make sure you use `wine32 winecfg` and set the OS to Windows 95 5. Copy the files to C:\3d inside the wineprefix 6. Enter command prompt from wine (`wine32 cmd`) 7. `set include=C:\MSVC20\INC` 8. `.\setvars.bat` 9. `nmake` Unfortunately wine segfaults for me when compiling one of the BRender files :'( EDIT: Now I have Bren and Engine building! Studio does not build, reports that it doesn't know how to generate 'C:\3d\kauai\obj\wins\utilglob.obj'. Probably something simple...
- anthk 4y ago
  >case insensitive. Just create a disk image and mkfs.ext4 it :) mkdir -p ~/wine/prefix truncate -s 10G ~/wine/wine.img mkfs.ext4 -flags -foo -bar ~/wine/wine.img
  - wizzledonker 4y ago
    That is such an incredibly good idea haha Thanks :)
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    For the record, you don't need the case folding filesystem at all. Wine has been doing its own case insensitive lookups and comparisons for decades with the only problem being performance which is certainly not going to be a concern here.
- LowLevelMahn 4y ago
  i would use a real Win95,98,XP in virtualization, there could be many micro flaws using Wine with this old stuff :)
NexRebular 4y ago
I wonder which OS this was originally developed on if it's 32-bit but pre-Win95. Maybe NT3 or Chicago betas?
- userbinator 4y ago
  Probably NT3.
jelling 4y ago
If anyone is interested in working on a similar product, I've developed a product that is in private beta with users. Raise forthcoming. Developers are always needed but don't hesitate to reach out if you can help with growth or product.
iamcurious 4y ago
Great! Fingers crossed Adobe gets the hint and open sources Flash MX.
eurasiantiger 4y ago
Someone please build this for WebAssembly!
- tombert 4y ago
  +1 for this. I would kill to be able to play this quasi-natively on my Mac...I would be perfectly happy with a browser version.
Dave3of5 4y ago
Ahh the big old 9000 line long files way of developing code. There are surprising few files but those that are here are massive.
navjack27 4y ago
I got it to build in my PCem windows 98 machine with visual c++ 2.0 installed on it ( among other unrelated things ) up until the utilglob.obj file. Just to make things easier I added the bin folder of the mscv20 folder to my autoexec's path. I also used visual Studio code on my host computer to replace every instance of RM -f with del and also removed every instance of CMD /c and 2<nul because none of that is needed with the old DOS prompt. Also I made the proper modifications to the setvars.bat file, which you have to run in the command prompt that you're going to be using for this entire process.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
treesknees 4y ago
I still have the CD of the Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker release, which was basically this software but all the characters, sets, and sound effects were from cartoons like Rocko's Modern Life, Ahh Real Monsters, Ren & Stimpy, etc. Wish I still had my save files. https://archive.org/details/nick3dmoviemaker https://archive.org/details/nick3dmoviemaker https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Nickelodeon_3D_Movie_Maker https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Nickelodeon_3D_Movie_Mak...
LowLevelMahn 4y ago
are there any files in the source release that can also be found the in the CD release - are they 100% equal or do we maybe got sources of a pre 1.0 or post 1.0 version?
LowLevelMahn 4y ago
someone gets it build and running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqXTzlDZmhU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqXTzlDZmhU see comments on youtube

I still have the original CDs for this. I booted it up the other week and much to my surprise it still ran quite well on Windows 10.

voidfunc 4y ago
Microsoft doesn't always get it right, but they do try very hard to be backwards compatible for a very very long time.
- steve_coral 4y ago
  It's true. Windows is essentially a museum of sorts
rightbyte 4y ago
Dear God I need to find my CD of it and try. Good that I didn't skip the DVD drive in my second latest PC build ...
- tombert 4y ago
  Not 100% sure of the legality of this now with the open-sourcing, but 3DMM is readily available on the internet archive: https://archive.org/details/3dmoviemaker https://archive.org/details/3dmoviemaker
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Thanks will try did not find the CD the casing was empty ...

arriu 4y ago

Is unreal engine the modern day equivalent of this? Is there something else that is more approachable?

dagmx 4y ago
Source Filmmaker and Unity are pretty approachable too
- smoldesu 4y ago
  SFM is definitely the closest modern equivalent that comes to mind.
  - crate_barre 4y ago
    SFM is a real tool. People have made production quality stuff on it: https://youtu.be/PU1fu6ErBoA https://youtu.be/PU1fu6ErBoA
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      Listen, I have a real soft-spot for SFM and the people who use it. Valve made some really quality stuff with it in their hayday, and every once in a while I'll see a Saxxy winner that really knocks my socks off. Splicing stock footage with SFM-rendered content is not "production quality" though, and generally speaking their render pipeline has aged the worst of all. TF2 and SFM looked great in 2008, the highly stylized graphics did a good job to separate it from the pack. Nowadays it just looks corny though. Maybe it's because I've just seen so much SFM by now, but I think the bigger issue is that the textures and texture filtering just looks bad these days. If SFM wants to remain relevant, it's going to need a lot of work put into SFM2 to get it ready for a new era of animation.
      - pelorat 4y ago
        I mean S2FM is already usable, just look at TheParryGod's stuff on YT.

password4321 4y ago

Now to set up GitHub Actions to build it... ;)

tombert 4y ago
I'm waiting for the ports to Mac and Linux. I doubt it will happen but a guy can dream...

drewtato 4y ago

Related: https://github.com/foone/BRender-v1.3.2 https://github.com/foone/BRender-v1.3.2 Context: https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1521583448795672576 https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1521583448795672576

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
Blown away foone managed to just ask for this... and get it... within a month timeframe. Gives me some hope we can get more ancient software open sourced in the future.
- shanselman 4y ago
  We do try.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    Visual Basic 6.0? (I mostly kid, I know this has been enough of an ask for enough years if it was similarly trivial it would've probably happened by now.) Thanks for your work on open sourcing awesome old Microsoft stuff!
    - rektide 4y ago
      Someone's attempting a recreation. "Rad Basic: 100% compatible with VB6"[1]. [1] https://www.radbasic.dev/ https://www.radbasic.dev/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31202696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31202696 (3 points, 4 days ago, 0 comments)
    - exikyut 4y ago
      Sigh I was just about to ask about MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 98, that sort of thing, and I think I figured out a bit more of the answer. 1. <Company> releases source code to old useless thing that's only of historical interest 2. Ginormous community forms around it (see also: retrocomputing in general, niche hyperfocused interest groups around old software like this) 3. Community basically picks old useless thing up off the ground and rocket-boosts it into being fun and genuinely usable 4. Now-useful thing becomes a way to do cool stuff; it is now relevant!!1 This phenomena can only work if one very specific thing is true: if the functionality made available by the software in question is closed-ended. DOS 3.30 is closed-ended; it doesn't support all the APIs of DOS 6. This software is also closed-ended, in the sense that there would be no real-world value gained from trying to make this specific codebase line up with contemporary standards (of code design, or render quality, etc etc); such a project would universally be easier to start from scratch, even if it was using this as a base for inspiration. Community effort to fix something like this without completely ship-of-Thesesus-ing it will get a decent bit of the way there, but (being a tad objective) it'll have a stopping point. I think this scope limitation is a key part of what makes it possible to release old stuff like this. Win98 and VB6 and things of a similar class have both huge niche focus and interest by the retrocomputing community, AND they are fundamentally open in the sense that Win98 is an entire operating system, and VB6 is an entire development environment. The purpose of both products is fundamentally to enable. To enable you to run software and enable you to build it. So, couple all that potential with the reception the release would bring, and... oops, the community forked Win98 and made it run on the latest CPUs and added VM window resize support and started backporting random NT (and brand-new) APIs to make it do new and random stuff. And then they went and fixed all the bugs in VB6's runtime and added a JIT (!) and WASM support and ThEn ThE FaTeFuL GiThUb IsSuE #42 GoT OpEnEd WhErE SoMeOnE AcTuAlLY OuTlInEd HoW To SuCcEsSfUlLy PoRt iT tO LiNuX. The other problem is that things like old versions of Windows or Visual Basic are of a scale that's an order of magnitude larger than smaller releases like the one presented here, making community enablement that much more impactful - maybe not to the full order of magnitude, but to an extent that is nontrivial... and might hit the tipping-point of virality that would really attract attention to the project and get it front-and-center into the pop-culture limelight. My working theory is that there's isn't anything fundamentally wrong with this, to the extent that it's quite possible legal wouldn't fundamentally be totally against it. Rather, you have <Company> officially open sources thing -> community promptly hefts thing onto their collective shoulders -> thing is now relevant -> thing's open-endedness combined with its relevance turns it into a serious contender for contemporary mindshare -> everyone starts looking at <company> and making noises about how the original release was technically official -> people start asking why <company> "has abandoned *thing*" D: If anyone could shoot down this idea and let me know it is actually some other type of legal ramification (that maybe I could get further details about in person someday) I would be very appreciative. EDIT: This is now at 0. Okay... interested to hear more details. (Edit2 just before it locks: it's back to 1 at least heh)

trinovantes 4y ago

> The code does not build with today's engineering tools, and is released as-is. Unfortunate given Microsoft's track record of maintaining backwards compatibility

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Microsoft has an amazing track record of binary compatibility, not source. Although that does imply that you should be able to run an old compiler and make it work.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
It's not surprising considering how many major versions of Windows have since passed. XP and 7 each broke large swaths of software, for mostly good reasons, despite all sorts of work to maintain compatibility. The important thing is it's a starting point. foone specifically indicated a desire to update and extend the software, which means at minimum, a fork that runs on modern platforms.
jeffwilcox 4y ago
I feel like it's close... but it's pretty hard to take engineers off of modern day projects to go figure out what's needed to make an almost 30-year old set of source code to build. I imagine some folks will get this building soon that are smarter than we are!
- zamadatix 4y ago
  As nice as it is to see some of the old source code released for nostalgia reasons (the old winfile also comes to mind) it's been even nicer to see some of the modern Microsoft apps make their way out as well. I've been able to directly interact with e.g. Windows Terminal development in ways traditional closed development would have just left me frustrated and disappointed.
  - jeffwilcox 4y ago
    Happy to learn more, ping me in some form. The Windows Terminal is building a community on GitHub and it's pretty active.

tombert 4y ago

I cannot tell you how many hours I spent playing with 3DMM… once I figured out that you could make a gun by using a 3D “L” shape, my cartoons got violent and weird and I absolutely loved it, and I kept playing with it well into my teenage years. I should see if I still have my CDs for it somewhere so I can run it in a VM.

_s_a_m_ 4y ago
:D
- Inviz 4y ago
  3D movie maker was one my first computer experiences ever. The maskot and the intros, the movies and the scenes, some creepy looking uncanny cg backgrounds and music. Peak 90s stuff. Amazing product!
  - tombert 4y ago
    I feel like some of my best "gaming memories" are with things that aren't even entirely games at all, but instead creation tools tailored towards kids. I spent many hours with 3D Movie Maker, but also the Spiderman Cartoon Maker, Kidpix, the PS1 version of RPG Maker, and more recently Pico-8. I think there's a viscerally satisfying feeling you get when making something that you just don't get when you're playing someone else's game. 3DMM might have had 1% of the budget of a modern Call of Duty game, but I'll remember the time I spent playing 3DMM substantially more.
    - anthk 4y ago
      Ditto with text adventures. You can write one with Inform6 and the Inform Beginners' Guide with ease (and now with inform7 too). You don't need to know how to draw or sketch. Just write. Inform7 it's a logical clause based language, that's it, you just state conditions and the compiler makes your adventure. Inform6 it's object oriented but it's the easiest OOP language ever, you can create a 10x10 "room" size town in minutes and defining the objects can take less than an hour. The logic and debug, well, maybe some days/weeks, but far less than a graphical game. And the most crazy stuff: after that, you'll game will run under DOS, Amiga, Android, GNU/Linux, BSDs, Windows, IOS, everywhere where a Z-Machine interpreter like frotz exists. Opening your adventime game on a DOS/Amiga emulator and watching it running in the same way as your desktop PC it's astounding. When I opened my prototype (In Spanish, thanks to INFSP6 for Inform6) under UAE with Amiga OS 3.1 and Frotz, and later, Frotz for DOS under DOSBox, the feeling was incredible.

olliej 4y ago

I recall thinking this was absolutely amazing on my uncle’s ¿486? Now I’m not so sure it holds up :)

matthewhartmans 4y ago

This is incredible! I used to spend days making movies with this when I was a kid. Short clips and random stuff just to get laughs from friends and family. There is a community still going around this where people post there movies and stuff - https://www.3dmm.com/ https://www.3dmm.com/ Oh wow, good times!

Lorin 4y ago
Same! I used to run a site for highly rated 3DMM movies that begun becoming popular until someone flagged it for copyright infringement and Xoom terminated it without warning while I was on vacation, tried showing it to friends but it wouldn't load :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xoom_(web_hosting) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xoom_(web_hosting) I then attempted to make a technically complex movie myself, and of course my HDD crashed - seems as a kid I could never catch a break when it came to technology :P

LowLevelMahn 4y ago

Visual C++ 2.x can be downloaded here: https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x hope they will every release the good old Basic Compiler bascom/basrun stuff

warent 4y ago

Can someone explain to me why Microsoft file and directory names are always so hideous? Like, what in the world is cd12, cd2, cd3, cd9? Somehow it gets worse when you click into them.

shanselman 4y ago
That’s not related to Microsoft the company. That’s a result of the archivist systems that I had to mess with to get this stuff restored from tapes and CDs. I didn’t feel like changing it too much. So blame me.
- yuchi 4y ago
  Thanks for your effort. Having a piece of my childhood made open source makes me so happy.
- pseudosavant 4y ago
  Consider yourself blamed Scott! jk
- warent 4y ago
  My comment definitely came across as rude and I apologize. Thanks for your work and for taking the time to provide a thoughtful answer :) I'd probably also have left it just as you did.
  - shanselman 4y ago
    :)
- jml7c5 4y ago
  I prefer it this way! It's better to share the "rawest" backups and fix them up after they've been dumped into version control so that a history of changes is available.
zamadatix 4y ago
Being near 30 years old a lot of the naming looks hideous because it was developed with 8.3 filenames. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-fscc/18e63b13-ba43-4f5f-a5b7-11e871b71f14 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols...

Scalene2 4y ago

If an updated version that easily runs on present day hardware gets released then the memes made with it could be glorious.

exikyut 4y ago
*Clicks the star and watch buttons on GitHub for you* Seriously. It'll likely both take a little while, yet be usable much sooner than you expect.
- arusahni 4y ago
  The fact that the repo is archived indicates to me that this is just a code dump. You'll need to monitor the forks for people's attempts to resurrect it.
  - longtimelistnr 4y ago
    Follow/check @foone on twitter that’ll be the easiest way as they are responsible for this happening and will probably work really hard to get it running as fast as possible. They’ve been tweeting about this forever but all the sudden last month their tweet thread picked up steam and a month later it’s open source

jchw 4y ago

This is astounding. Truly above expectations. I hope it’s not the last such stunning open sourcing from Microsoft, as there is so much historical stuff I’d really like to explore, but I can’t complain.

trog 4y ago

who are you and what have you done with Microsoft

oblio 4y ago
They're still there. This org chart is as accurate as it was in 2011: https://www.cultofmac.com/102917/apple-ms-google-etc-imagined-as-fun-org-charts/ https://www.cultofmac.com/102917/apple-ms-google-etc-imagine... One group is moving forward and another one is putting ads in the OS...

jszymborski 4y ago

Anyone have any favourite videos made with this?

paisawalla 4y ago
One example, taken from the forum posted in another comment: https://youtu.be/JYEYP-iTNHc https://youtu.be/JYEYP-iTNHc
poser-boy 4y ago
Lot's of ironic meme-style videos from 10+ years ago. (NSFW language) - https://youtu.be/PGJKeESLBpQ https://youtu.be/PGJKeESLBpQ - https://youtu.be/X0pEBE_eYdU https://youtu.be/X0pEBE_eYdU - https://youtu.be/H8Nbd4yO1qw https://youtu.be/H8Nbd4yO1qw (this is a reup from 2009) - https://youtu.be/VqqRRWIYiy8?t=16 https://youtu.be/VqqRRWIYiy8?t=16 Actually there is an entire playlist you can enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_7_xaiHt-pegi1SwC1tVgXosGCrHqjKk https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_7_xaiHt-pegi1SwC1tV...
- djmips 4y ago
  Wow that first one is really surprising for it's proficient cinematic vocabulary. The shots are great juxtaposed against this very rudimentary 3D tool. Neat!
  - poser-boy 4y ago
    Yes that one impressed me the most. A random aside. Note on the videos from 2006/7, you've got comments from the last year joking that the authors are time-travelers spreading Gen-Z humor to the past.
Risse 4y ago
Blue Shell Incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUT2kKZeUpo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUT2kKZeUpo
samoyy 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAXioRNYy4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAXioRNYy4s A classic.

sundvor 4y ago

This is awesome on so many levels. The bottom part of the read me says Jez San of Argonaut agreed to MIT the BRender part of it. Argonaut rang a bell, and sure enough - Jez developed Starglider, one of my all time favourite games on the Amiga. I can still remember it today, nearly four decades later: It was the first time I visited a new friend, who was the first in our neighbourhood to get the Amiga. He fired up Starglider- and I was simply blown away. My C64 didn't cut it anymore - I just had to get the Amiga. An involvement in the Norwegian demo scene followed. This later had a big impact on my career as a SWE; thanks very much for this, Jez, if you're here!

lproven 4y ago
Oh yes, Starglider was stunning at the time. But wireframe only, I think? I think Starglider 2 was inspired in part by Zarch on the Archimedes, and the free Lander demo that came with every Archie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFwpsb75omg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFwpsb75omg It is hard to put into words how amazing it was to see this running, live and playable, on a home computer in 1987. Jez San also co-designed the SuperFX 3D accelerator chip in the SNES game Starfox. That evolved into the ARC RISC CPU family. An ARC core was the Intel Management Engine chip in Intel CPUs before they switched to an x86 ME controller running Minix 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Hardwa... And that ARC core ran ThreadX, which is the same OS that runs on the GPU of every Raspberry Pi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreadX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreadX San offered me a job once, nearly 30Y ago. I should have accepted it. :-D
- JezSan 4y ago
  am sure you did fine without that job ;-) btw, the arc core got used in lots of things that you never hear about... like in Sandisk memory cards (no relation), and various set top box chips (mpeg etc), and wifi chips (at the time, most intel wifi chips used arc)
- JezSan 4y ago
  interesting anecdotes about argonaut design methodology... pt 2 we used the opposite approach to design the Super FX chip (we called it the Mario chip - likely the first ever gpu) Carl & Pete would write code to do 3d math and render polygons... and write and re-write the code hundreds of times, using an imaginary assembler language. they would invent new instructions on the fly to let their code get tighter. they would keep coming up with new instructions, new registers, new ways of forming instructions and referencing registers etc... until the code was the tightest... and THEN, we designed a microprocessor from scratch to execute those instructions. Also, likely the opposite way that microprocessors were designed... because (in the past) the designers had no idea what their cpus were going to be used for, whereas we knew what we wanted to achieve, so got to use software to drive the hardware design. this was the first time that a cpu was able to be designed using programmable gate arrays. literally Ben & Rob could make a change to the hardware design - the netlist, and email it off to the usa, and actel would Fedex back the next day a working chip for us to try out. this was before you could program your own fpga's yourself (and Xilinx at the time wasn't large enough to fit a whole microprocessor). this iterative approach allowed us to design the optimum 'gpu' for the task.

o_m 4y ago

This game got me into creating stuff with computers, which lead to me becoming a developer later on. So many good memories from this.

blarneystone 4y ago
Same here! I owe my livelihood to this game

liquid153 4y ago

memories

liquid153 4y ago

Does anyone remember Pandora Box https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMeidL4xZ2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMeidL4xZ2A

peterashford 4y ago

Starglider was brilliant =)

amir-h 4y ago

Seems like each source file has a comment saying: Primary Author : *** Review Status: Reviewed I wonder what was their process for version control and code review back in the day?

jeffwilcox 4y ago
With the exception of a specific engineers who we checked with, our process includes masking developer aliases, names, etc. It does seem that version control was a lot more basic back then. We're seeing comments on Twitter that it's likely this was under the SLM system, which includes holding an exclusive lock on specific files. (Some history here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180122-00/?p=97855 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180122-00/?p=97...)

pkamb 4y ago

"I'll trade a magic trick for a vase."

AndrewOMartin 4y ago
Hey hey! That was excellent! What would you like to do now?
- matthewhartmans 4y ago
  hmmm i'll check to see if there's time before dinner

svag 4y ago

This is interesting at the bottom of the readme file Jez also offered this interesting BRender anecdote in an email: When Sam Littlewood designed BRender, he didn’t write the code. And then document it. The way most things were built at the time. First, he wrote the manual. The full documentation That served as the spec. Then the coding started.

johnchristopher 4y ago
Right now, at work, I am getting insane with a task of re implementing some web forms that talk to shinier API. No documentation "just read the previous ruby server side validation code and put it on the js front-end". So I am hunting for hints and people to to be sure the code does what it intended to do. And I get cup sized eyes when asking for documentation :D.
- cfn 4y ago
  You are lucky, I am reimplementing CRM functionality on a web api by looking at SQL Server Profiler!
  - johnchristopher 4y ago
    Haha, wtf :D.
  - teh_klev 4y ago
    Holey moley, that's just plain cruel.
  - smaudet 4y ago
    Why wouldn't you reach for a decompiler first? I guess perhaps you are working with some very obfuscated code, still if you are black box profiling code it might make sense to crack open that box as much as possible. Unless what you are working with is DRM-level "performs like cow dung in a blender" horrifically inefficient, I can't imagine it is obfuscated that badly. At any rate, hopefully you are paid well for it, reverse engineering is difficult, to say the least.

BugWatch 4y ago

Oh my FSM! This brings some very, very early, and almost forgotten memories! Of fiddling with limited demo version of this, and it seeming so magical to my kid's eyes way back then... :)

Aissen 4y ago

Congrats, this type of release is really hard to do and usually gains you nothing apart from that impossible to measure reputation. Kudos to all involved.

spacechild1 4y ago

So many childhood memories! What a shame I didn't archive my movies back then. Would be so much fun watching them 20 years later as an adult...

Lorin 4y ago

Fun fact, you can blame this project for the public release of Comic Sans ;)

tombert 4y ago
Wait is that true? I had always heard that was Microsoft Bob's gift to the world...though clearly I'm wrong according to Wikipedia [1]. > The infamous Comic Sans font also made its first appearance in 3D Movie Maker [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Movie_Maker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Movie_Maker
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  You're both right :) "Comic Sans was designed by Vincent Connare to fit the theme of Microsoft Bob and was inspired by comics like Watchmen and Batman. It would have fit Bob’s animated interface, but it wasn’t completed in time for the release. Given the short lifespan of Bob, we’d never learn to use Windows in Comic Sans. The font did get included in later Microsoft programs starting with Microsoft 3D Movie Maker." From https://uxdesign.cc/the-ugly-history-of-comic-sans-bd5d07f8ce81 https://uxdesign.cc/the-ugly-history-of-comic-sans-bd5d07f8c...
  - tombert 4y ago
    Not to get too far off on a tangent, but I am going to take a slightly unpopular opinion: Comic Sans is amongst the most readable fonts. It sheds almost all notions of trying to be "pretty", and thus the letters are distinct and easy to read. I wouldn't submit a research paper in Comic Sans, but I do happily use it for nearly everything internal to my computer (e.g. my coding font, my Obsidian notebooks, slack, etc), and I'm not even dyslexic, which apparently it's considered really good for. I feel like it's almost a shame that it has been deemed as "unprofessional", I think largely because of people using it in places that it doesn't really fit (e.g. the aforementioned research papers). I think there exists an alternate universe where people appreciate Comic Sans for the treasure that it is, and I suppose I can thank both MS Bob and 3DMM for it :).

ChrisRR 4y ago

This is a pleasant surprise. I absolutely lived on 3DMM and 3DMM.com (which is still going) They already did great jobs with expanding the tools via RE but I wonder if anyone will start adding new features.

marcodiego 4y ago

Congrats, microsoft! I don't know how popular, useful or powerful this software is but, although not a microsft flagship, I love when companies open source their software that is no longer a huge profit margin. At the least it is better than see it dying deep into a drawer.

oaiey 4y ago
Absolutely. I also love it for exactly that reason. It is no longer a financial asset, it is no longer competetive advantage and not a unique jumpstart which can lead to one.

_s_a_m_ 4y ago

I hope someone creates a modern build which can run on current Windows versions.

gattilorenz 4y ago
That's literally one of the goals of foone (https://twitter.com/foone https://twitter.com/foone), who has been asking Microsoft to release the source code for years. Other goals, as far as I remember, are removing limitations on number of objects etc., the ability to export in a modern video format, and different resolutions.
xeromal 4y ago
It looks like if you have the CDs, it still runs on Windows 10.

als0 4y ago

I'd like to take this opportunity to share that the Steamed Hams meme was recreated in 3D Movie Maker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbQHE4kVFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbQHE4kVFk

foo5675763 4y ago

Old-school MS code! :)

wizzledonker 4y ago

I've managed to get it to build about half way; 1. In linux 2. Install wine 7.5 (other versions may work, this is what I used) 3. Create a 32-bit wineprefix on a *case-insensitive* ext4 drive (https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2020/08/27/using-the-linux-kernel-case-insensitive-feature-in-ext4/ https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2020/08/27/usin...) 4. Download MSVC 2.0 (https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x https://winworldpc.com/product/visual-c/2x), extract and install it into the 32-bit wineprefix - Make sure you use `wine32 winecfg` and set the OS to Windows 95 5. Copy the files to C:\3d inside the wineprefix 6. Enter command prompt from wine (`wine32 cmd`) 7. `set include=C:\MSVC20\INC` 8. `.\setvars.bat` 9. `nmake` Unfortunately wine segfaults for me when compiling one of the BRender files :'( EDIT: Now I have Bren and Engine building! Studio does not build, reports that it doesn't know how to generate 'C:\3d\kauai\obj\wins\utilglob.obj'. Probably something simple...

anthk 4y ago
>case insensitive. Just create a disk image and mkfs.ext4 it :) mkdir -p ~/wine/prefix truncate -s 10G ~/wine/wine.img mkfs.ext4 -flags -foo -bar ~/wine/wine.img
- wizzledonker 4y ago
  That is such an incredibly good idea haha Thanks :)
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  For the record, you don't need the case folding filesystem at all. Wine has been doing its own case insensitive lookups and comparisons for decades with the only problem being performance which is certainly not going to be a concern here.
LowLevelMahn 4y ago
i would use a real Win95,98,XP in virtualization, there could be many micro flaws using Wine with this old stuff :)

NexRebular 4y ago

I wonder which OS this was originally developed on if it's 32-bit but pre-Win95. Maybe NT3 or Chicago betas?

userbinator 4y ago
Probably NT3.

jelling 4y ago

If anyone is interested in working on a similar product, I've developed a product that is in private beta with users. Raise forthcoming. Developers are always needed but don't hesitate to reach out if you can help with growth or product.

iamcurious 4y ago

Great! Fingers crossed Adobe gets the hint and open sources Flash MX.

eurasiantiger 4y ago

Someone please build this for WebAssembly!

tombert 4y ago
+1 for this. I would kill to be able to play this quasi-natively on my Mac...I would be perfectly happy with a browser version.

Dave3of5 4y ago

Ahh the big old 9000 line long files way of developing code. There are surprising few files but those that are here are massive.

navjack27 4y ago

I got it to build in my PCem windows 98 machine with visual c++ 2.0 installed on it ( among other unrelated things ) up until the utilglob.obj file. Just to make things easier I added the bin folder of the mscv20 folder to my autoexec's path. I also used visual Studio code on my host computer to replace every instance of RM -f with del and also removed every instance of CMD /c and 2<nul because none of that is needed with the old DOS prompt. Also I made the proper modifications to the setvars.bat file, which you have to run in the command prompt that you're going to be using for this entire process.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

treesknees 4y ago

I still have the CD of the Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker release, which was basically this software but all the characters, sets, and sound effects were from cartoons like Rocko's Modern Life, Ahh Real Monsters, Ren & Stimpy, etc. Wish I still had my save files. https://archive.org/details/nick3dmoviemaker https://archive.org/details/nick3dmoviemaker https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Nickelodeon_3D_Movie_Maker https://nickelodeon.fandom.com/wiki/Nickelodeon_3D_Movie_Mak...

LowLevelMahn 4y ago

are there any files in the source release that can also be found the in the CD release - are they 100% equal or do we maybe got sources of a pre 1.0 or post 1.0 version?

LowLevelMahn 4y ago

someone gets it build and running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqXTzlDZmhU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqXTzlDZmhU see comments on youtube