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Porting 3D Movie Maker to Linux
134 points by speckx 3 days ago | 27 comments
  • lproven
    More info from the other chap involved in the port:

    https://www.ilande.co.uk/2026/04/06/porting-3dmm-to-linux-pa...

    https://www.ilande.co.uk/2026/04/17/porting-3dmm-to-linux-pa...

    I wrote about it here:

    https://www.theregister.com/oses/2026/05/13/linux-gains-more...

  • tombert
    Next logical step would be WASM, I suppose. Then I could easily show everyone in the world 12-year-old-tombert's masterpiece "Fatso Man and Tarzan Baby".

    ETA: I'm gonna give it a go with Claude tonight. Need to justify my $100 membership somehow.

    • tombert
      UPDATE: About an hour with Claude gave me this: https://3dmmex.pages.dev/

      It actually works reasonably well from what I can tell, though I haven't thoroughly tested it.

      • tombert
        Here's the WASM source to those interested: https://github.com/Tombert/3DMMEx_WASM
        • intuxikated
          Doesn't work on brave on mobile, says fonts are missing Maybe you can bundle the fonts?
    • Pxtl
      Honestly there's a huge void online for a new xtranormal
      • tombert
        Agreed. Now that 3DMM is open source, someone should make a video about how Kubernetes is Web Scale.
        • aaronbrethorst
          For anyone too young to catch the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs
    • ksi23
      [flagged]
  • vintagedave
    Here is the blog series from the dev working on the Linux side of the port. (It was a group effort - both authors are very clear about the contributions from the other, it's really nice to read a story like this!) https://www.ilande.co.uk/2026/04/06/porting-3dmm-to-linux-pa...
  • OuterVale
    The most fantastic video I've ever seen created in Microsoft 3D Movie Maker is 'Grandpa Found the Car Keys': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGJKeESLBpQ

    A very impressive use of the tool to achieve a pretty impressive amount of style within the limitations.

    • AndrewOMartin
      Your point stands, it's very impressive. But Dragon in America was a cut above even that. Just look at the "chase scene" starting at 10:00 (even just 15 seconds should be enough to make my point)

      https://youtu.be/i5IJCAhiBhw?si=qsTJgv6MsfjXmEXU&t=600

      For anyone not familiar with 3DMM, there was no facility to move "the camera" to any apparent camera movement was just moving each primitive object, as far as I know, one piece at a time.

  • adamsb6
    I had forgotten how much time I spent with this software until I saw the screenshot. Thanks for the port!
  • hsbauauvhabzb
    Awesome! I can now ditch Windows. The year is finally here.
    • Joel_Mckay
      TPM tamper detection and bitlocker disagree. Backup your key first...

      https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/back-up-your-bit...

      Just about any *nix platform is a better experience now, but many Steam games are still windows only. =3

      • hsbauauvhabzb
        Are you suggesting there are games that are not 3D movie maker that are worth playing?
        • Joel_Mckay
          A lot of legacy applications will not work in Wine.

          86box is a great option for old programs and games... no herculean porting efforts required. =3

          https://github.com/86Box/86Box

          • ChrisRR
            Do you find you have issues recognising sarcasm?
  • matthewhartmans
    I used 3dmm throughout my high school making movies for school projects and side projects for laughs.

    This is an absolute gem! Thank you!

  • wolpoli
    Does anyone know why the 3DMMForever project stalled? Was technical or was it just a general lack of interest?
    • parlortricks
      This one looks to be the active fork, https://github.com/benstone/3DMMEx

      i should have read the article first...

  • stevebmark
    RIP Pozin
    • ChrisRR
      Hold up. Pozin died? There's a name I haven't heard in a long time
  • ddtaylor
    I remember this source was released a while back and some people hacked it together to run on modern Windows.

    Yay!

  • pulimento
    wow, such an amazing job! really a gymkhana of libraries to port/change. makes me think in the (unknown future) portability of the software I create today
  • rossant
    Brings me back! Well done!
  • DParida08
    That's peretty cool!!
  • Computer0
    I had never heard of this piece of software before. I would be very interested in trying it out on Linux.
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