Microsoft have open-sourced 3D Movie Maker by popular demand

rockpapershotgun.com:

In a curious bit of historical preservation, Microsoft have released the source code for 3D Movie Maker, a fondly remembered piece of software from 1995. This comes amidst a wave of source code releases for Argonaut Games' BRender engine, which was also used by games including Carmageddon 1 & 2, Star Fox, Privateer 2: The Darkening, Queen: The eYe, and and Croc. This could lead to fan-updated versions which are easier to run on modern computers.

Created by Argonaut, the BRender 3D engine lived a long life, with the first game using it coming out in 1984 and the last being, depending on how generous you feel, either 2004's Catwoman movie tie-in or the cancelled Star Fox 2 finally released in 2017. It's one of those engines which was upgraded a lot over time. Now, thanks to the advocacy of Foone Turing, source code for several versions from the 90s is publicly available.

In April, Turing bugged Microsoft on Twitter to give them the source code for 3D Movie Maker, laying out their hopes to update and update it. The former CEO of Argonaut, Jez San, saw this tweet and responded saying he held the rights to the engine and was happy to open it but didn't have a copy of the source. Well! Turns out, a few folks had BRender source for one reason or another, and after some wrangling and tidying, Foone has released source for several versions, with even Microsoft officially joining in.

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

So! You can now download the 3D Movie Maker source