Intrigued by historic preservation, Microsoft released the source code for 3D Movie Maker, a nostalgic piece of software from 1995. You’re probably best aware of it from Jerma985’s classic Rat Movie (pictured ↑ above). This comes amid a wave of source code releases for Argonaut Games’ BRender engine, which is also used by games like Carmageddon 1 and 2, Star Fox, Privateer 2: The Darkening, Queen: The eYe, and Croc. This could lead to an updated version of the fan that is easier to run on modern computers.
The BRender 3D engine, created by Argonaut, has a long life, the first game to use it came out in 1984, and the last was either the 2004 Catwoman movie tie-in or the cancelled Star Fox 2, depending on how you feel. in 2017. It’s one of those engines that has been upgraded a lot over time. Now, at the initiative of Foone Turing, the source code for several versions from the 90s has been made public.
In April, Turing eavesdropped on Microsoft on twitter Give them the source code of 3D Movie Maker, express their desire to update and update it. Jez San, the former CEO of Argonaut, saw the tweet and respond Says he owns the rights to the engine and is happy to open it, but doesn’t have a copy of the source. it is good!It turns out that some people have the BRender source code for some reason, and after some wrangling and tidying up, Foone has released multiple versions of the source code, even Microsoft’s officially joined.
so! You can now download the 3D Movie Maker source code, as well as the source code for several other BRender versions: the 1995 DOS version used in Privateer 2, the 1997 version used in Croc, another 1997 version, and a 1998 version. Turing’s personal wiki has more information on the different versions, documentation, etc.
Turing also famous They reached out to THQ Nordic, the current owner of Carmageddon, in the hope that the code for the murderous racing series might follow once BRender is open. Due to the lack of source code, a group of fans have been working on reverse engineering Carmageddon for years.
The first hope of releasing the source code is that fans will be able to update the engine so the software can easily run on modern systems without the hassle, workarounds, and weird fixes. This is always welcome. Then, maybe – hopefully – people can expand the game with new features. For example, the open source engine is why today’s fan-modified Doom engine can support everything from modern screen resolutions and more complex mods to full ray tracing.
Note that people still use 3D Movie Maker (and the spin-off Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker) to make movies. The 3DMM.com forum posts a new edition every few days, from shorts and startling edgy shorts to Ren & Stimpy crossover episodes. Thanks also to Jerma985’s short video for the lyrics “Rats! We are Rats! / We are Rats! / We hunt at night, we stalk at night / We are Rats!” https://news.google.com/ “I’m Big Rats!” , I made all the rules!”