We asked Hanselman why Microsoft was taking the trouble to put the 3D Movie Maker code out there after all these years.
“Because there’s never been an app like it,” Hanselman told Ars. “Even now 25 years later, there is a community excited about this tool.” He’s not wrong. 3D Movie Maker still has a small but active enthusiast user base that is still putting out content I would politely describe as “surreal.”
Open-sourcing the app could lead to all kinds of experimental forked versions, but Turing has specific updates that they also plan to release under an open source license. These improvements will include updated versions of the BRender engine and 3D Movie Maker that run natively on modern systems, and a “3D Movie Maker Plus” that removes the app’s 256 color limit, improves audio support, adds native video export features, and more. The goal will be to expand the software’s feature set while “keep[ing] it as simple and easy to use as the original.”
3D Movie Maker has one more dubious accomplishment to its name: Dialog boxes in 3D Movie Maker are the first documented appearance of Comic Sans, which was developed for Microsoft Bob but wasn’t ready when that software shipped. Comic Sans later conquered office signage everywhere thanks to its inclusion in the Windows 95 Plus! Pack, Internet Explorer, and other ’90s-era Microsoft products.