Microsoft reanimates 1995's 3D Movie Maker via GitHub
- Reference: 1651660149
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/05/04/3d_movie_make/
- Source link:
You can take a look [1]here .
For anyone too young to remember the tool, it came out of Microsoft's Kids educational subsidiary in 1995 and permitted the creation of movies using props, actors and scenes, all rendered in glorious circa-1995 3D. Various camera angles could be used, and while sample voices and music were included, users could import their own audio to add to the fun.
[2]
Various expansions and versions were produced (including a [3]Nickelodeon themed incarnation ) before 3D Movie Maker did that thing that all neat stuff produced by Microsoft does, and shuffled off into the Redmond cupboard where the Band, Media Center and Groove were locked away.
[4]
[5]
However, in April, Twitter user (and self-described "software necromancer") @foone suggested that perhaps Microsoft might like to open-source the old thing for purposes of extension and expansion. And Microsoft, in the guise of Scott Hanselman and friends, responded.
Hey friends - we've open sourced the code to 1995's Microsoft 3D Movie Maker [6]https://t.co/h4mYSKRrjK Thanks to [7]@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 [8]@foone for the idea! Enjoy. [9]https://t.co/6wBAkjkeIP — Scott Hanselman 🇺🇦 (@shanselman) [10]May 4, 2022
Before Reg readers gets too excited, it is important not to confuse 3D Movie Maker with the much-missed [11]Windows Movie Maker , which was a handy tool for playing with video files and released as part of the Windows Essentials suite at around the same time as Windows Me and then XP.
The code also won't build with modern tools. "Modern compilers dislike some of the pre C++98 conventions," notes the README , and a short folder name on root is needed ever if interested users can gather the requisite components. Those were the days, eh?
You'll also need to manually pop the infamous Comic Sans font files into the directory structure due to licensing issues.
[12]
Licensing issues have generally stymied the open-sourcing of many an elderly codebase, and so it is heartening to see a build of Argonaut Software's BRender included in the repo along with an anecdote attributed to Jez San, former CEO of Argonaut:
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.
This writer well remembers [13]Argonaut from the Starglider series on the Commodore Amiga of the late 1980s. Later games, such as 1993's Super NES hit, Star Fox, will also trigger a shiver of recollection among those of a certain age.
Starwing: Nintendo, Argonaut's Brit boffinry and the Super FX chip [14]READ MORE
As for 3D Movie Maker, the code is very much "as is", albeit with cleaning to remove developer identifying information. The repo is also a historical record, although forking is encouraged for experimentation purposes.
The full archive, which included alternate builds and products, is also not present. However, there is enough there for someone with the right tools and sufficient ambition to bring the old thing back to life.
[15]Assembly language, arcade games, and YouTube: The Reg speaks to former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer
[16]Modern life is rubbish – so why not take a trip down memory lane with Windows File Manager?
[17]Microsoft liberates ancient MS-DOS source from the museum and sticks it in GitHub
[18]SEAL up your data just like Microsoft: Redmond open-sources 'simple' homomorphic encryption blueprints
The open-sourcing of 3D Movie Maker comes hot on the heels of the open-sourcing of the likes of [19]File Manager and early versions of [20]MS-DOS .
We can't but help wonder what else could be ripe for dragging up from the basement of Redmond and uploading to GitHub. [21]Media Center , anyone? ®
Get our [22]Tech Resources
[1] https://github.com/microsoft/Microsoft-3D-Movie-Maker
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YnKjLBy9h66q4KovTf9INAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhX2tdsdxq8&ab_channel=CandyDaCat
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YnKjLBy9h66q4KovTf9INAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YnKjLBy9h66q4KovTf9INAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://t.co/h4mYSKRrjK
[7] https://twitter.com/jeffwilcox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[8] https://twitter.com/Foone?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[9] https://t.co/6wBAkjkeIP
[10] https://twitter.com/shanselman/status/1521698902579159040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2000/07/31/win_me_not_bad/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YnKjLBy9h66q4KovTf9INAAAAFA&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/15/starfox/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2013/08/15/starfox/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/06/plummer_interview/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/09/windows_file_manager_back_from_the_dead/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2018/10/01/microsoft_msdos_source_on_github/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2018/12/04/seal_data_microsoft/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/09/windows_file_manager_back_from_the_dead/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2018/10/01/microsoft_msdos_source_on_github/
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/06/plummer_interview/
[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Argonaut were shit hot!
Fascinating story about Argonaut and their 3D work with Nintendo kit. The dev at Argonaut who came up with 3D code was from a training scheme, he signed up to learn coding and found he was absolutely shit-hot at it. He developed the 3D code and Nintendo were so supicious that anyone could possibly do what they said, that they flew him and a fellow dev out to Nintendo HQ in Japan, locked them in a room with the top Nintendo dev team and engineers and these two nobodies from the UK just blew the Nintendo devs and engineers away with what they'd been able to do on bog Nintendo standard hardware. Nintendo then got them to stay on in Japan on the work that later led to Starfox.
not 100% accurate
Lets put some flesh onto the bones of that story.
Whilst true your rendition isnt accurate:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonaut_Games
"In 1990, Argonaut collaborated with Nintendo during the early years of the NES and SNES, a notable incident being when Argonaut submitted a proof-of-concept method of defeating the Game Boy's copyright protection mechanism to Nintendo.[5] The combined efforts from both Nintendo and Argonaut yielded a prototype of the game Star Fox, initially codenamed "SnesGlider" and inspired by their earlier Atari ST and Amiga game Starglider, that they had running on the NES and then some weeks later on a prototype SNES. Jez San told Nintendo that his team could only improve performance or functionality of the demonstration if Nintendo allowed Argonaut to design custom hardware to extend the SNES to have true 3D capability. Nintendo agreed, so San hired chip designers and made the Super FX chip. They originally codenamed it the Mathematical Argonaut Rotation I/O, or "MARIO", as is printed on the chip's surface.[1][6] So powerful was the Super FX chip used to create the graphics and gameplay, that they joked that the Super NES was just a box to hold the chip.[7]"
I remember playing around with the demo of 3D Movie Maker. Should make a VM and play around with this Open Source version.
I wonder if one day Windows 3.0 will be open sourced? I have fond memories of some of the games for it.
I was once a lousy bum, just like you.
You lousy bum.
(Anyone remember that?)