Microsoft just open source the code for the 27 year old program called 3D Movie Maker and it’s all thanks to someone who asked for it on Twitter. The user goes by Foone, a “hardware and software necromancer,” they asked the Microsoft for the source code to the program so they could expand and extend it. Microsoft doesn’t own the BRender engine it runs on, but the one who does own it told Foone that he would be happy to open source it if he can find a copy. Thankfully, someone kept a copy of the engine, and Microsoft released the program’s code in its entirety.
The 3D movie Maker software, released in 1995, gives users a great, easy way to create 3D films by placing cartoon characters and props into rendered environments. For Twitter user and hardware software necromancer, Foone is going to be updating the program to be able to run on modern PCs, as add features to make it easier to share the resulting videos. The original source code for the project is now on GitHub, available under the MIT license as open source.
