In 1995, Microsoft Kids released 3D Movie Maker. That same year, the original Toy Story proved that full-length computer animation was possible, so people began installing software on home computers that allowed them to create rough but creative 3D animations that played 6-8 frames per second.
After the Movie Maker versions for Doraemon and Nickelodeon, the company never returned to the program. For now. On May 3, it became known that Microsoft had opened the code for 3D Movie Maker and placed it on GitHub in a repository with read-only access under the MIT license.
Hey friends - we've open sourced the code to 1995's Microsoft 3D Movie Maker https://t.co/h4mYSKRrjK Thanks to @jeffwilcox and the Microsoft OSS office as well our friends in legal and those who continue to put up with me being a nudzh. Thanks to @foone for the idea! Enjoy. https://t.co/6wBAkjkeIP
— Scott Hanselman 🌮 (@shanselman) May 4, 2022
The code was published because in April, the company was asked by some Fun Turing, who described themselves as a "hardware and software necromancer." They wanted to expand and develop the code.
In addition to the actual code, 3D Movie Maker, the company has published the BRender code - 3D - renderer, which was used in the program. Despite the fact that a lot of time has passed since the release of 3D Movie Makerstill has a small and active user base that creates content.
Opening the code can lead to a variety of experimental versions, but Microsoft is planning specific updates that will also be released in open source. In particular, they will update the versions of the BRender engine and 3D Movie Maker, which will work on modern systems. They will also release 3D Movie Maker Plus, which will remove the 256-color limit, improve audio support, add its own video export features, and more.