Back in 1995, Microsoft released Microsoft 3D Movie Maker that allowed users to create videos by placing 3D characters and props into pre-rendered environments. It also allowed users to add action, sound effects, music, text, speech and special effects to the videos.
Based on the feedback from the community, Microsoft has now open sourced the 3D Movie Maker tool. This open-source release includes a build from 1995 of BRender from Argonaut software.
Don’t get too excited about this news because this project is unlikely to build successfully on modern PCs. You can follow the instructions below to get started.
- Make sure this repo is checked out to a folder with a short name, ideally right on the root of a drive (i.e. C:\3d).
- You will need Visual C++ 2.0’s dev tools (located under MSVC20\BIN on its installer disk) on your path. Modern compilers dislike some of the pre C++98 conventions.
- From the root of this repo, runÂ
setvars.bat
 you can change the values in this script to change what your build will target. - Locate and place font files (see FONTS.md)
- Run nmake and you’ll begin building 3d Movie Maker.
Click the source link below for other details.