open3DMM Development

[Jayrod]

Open3dmm

An open source re-implementation of Microsoft's 3D Movie Maker.

The goal is to completely rewrite 3dmm from the ground up using only original code and adding functionality and extensibility.

Update October 9th, 2021:

The project uses just the game's datafiles and does NOT hook into the game's code anymore.

Here is a video presenting the help machine and help balloons! It isn't fully rendered yet but it shows a huge amount of progress in the Gui system.



This video demos the spawning of actors, which works pretty close to the original game. Soon I'll be working on fleshing out the rest of the studio and editor!



How YOU Can Help

Programmers - I would like your help with maintaining this ever-expanding project. It is written completely in C# (The GitHub is incredibly outdated as of right now [September 20th, 2020] Join the Discord for updates!)

Reverse Engineers - Experience in reverse engineering would be super. A lot of the game is being replicated "as close as possible" to the original, taking a peek inside the game is the best way to figure out how it works.

Donations - You can donate to me personally if you wish.

Links

Home Page: https://www.open3dmm.com/

GitHub (currently outdated): https://github.com/Jayrod246/Open3dmm

Discord (for discussion): https://discord.gg/pQ8MBaPFCS

Paypal (for donating): https://www.paypal.me/jayrod246

Shout outs to everyone who have shown their support so far!
- Will B-R
- Gorosaurus
- Mabdog
- Massimo
- Justin Wawrzonek

[Movie Lover]

Yes.

I has always want3d this

[Phil Williamson]

wow awesome! would this allow us to tinker with things like resolution and framerate that are hard-coded in normal 3dmm?

[Dustin Guest]

Holy shit. The stuff you guys are able to create is amazing.

[mdtaUK]

Do you intend to use pre-rendered scenes, or move to fully 3D scenes (or both) and eventually add animated camera support?

[Mabdog]

love
get this shit on kickstarter or something so I can give you my money

[Nintendoman]

This is really good!
is there any way you can implement a new way to animate a model?

[mdtaUK]

When the project starts to come into it's own. A top down/map view and the ability to draw a path for a prop/actor to follow. Setting the animation to play, and the amount of frames you wish the path to take.

[Lord Blazer]

are you going to reimplement the talent book and super z thx



But for serious, what tools/languages are you using here?

[Jayrod]

Thanks all, I appreciate your responses!

Originally Posted by Phil Williamson

wow awesome! would this allow us to tinker with things like resolution and framerate that are hard-coded in normal 3dmm?

Yes, and patches can be applied on the fly too (such as the mouse fix I posted recently). I was thinking maybe a launcher with various settings sort of like v3dmm manager. Or I could add a toolbar at the top of the window, above the 3dmm GUI. And much, much later I want to have a more sleek UI that can be toggled on or off.

Originally Posted by mdtaUK

Do you intend to use pre-rendered scenes, or move to fully 3D scenes (or both) and eventually add animated camera support?

I will implement both methods for backgrounds. And a navigable camera for editing is definitely on my list to add, as well as custom cameras and animated scene cameras.

Originally Posted by mdtaUK

A top down/map view and the ability to draw a path for a prop/actor to follow. Setting the animation to play, and the amount of frames you wish the path to take.

This seems pretty feasible to me. As you say, will come much later most likely depending on how fast/slow progress goes.

Originally Posted by Nintendoman

is there any way you can implement a new way to animate a model?

I was thinking of maybe a way to select parts of an actor, and move them independently frame by frame. Animating with actions will obviously work, and would most likely add keyframes to each body part under the hood which you can go back and tweak if you want. Oh, and there will most definitely be parenting of objects.

Originally Posted by Lord Blazer

are you going to reimplement the talent book and super z thx

The talent book, along with every other feature, will be implemented, either through the original native code or our own. The native code will require of course an original copy of 3dmm to be installed. Eventually, the entire software will be rewritten so that it won't be necessary to have a copy except for the original game graphics, music, etc. which will be optional too if we as a community can roll out our own default assets.

Originally Posted by Lord Blazer

what tools/languages are you using here?

I am coding as of right now in C# since that's the language I'm most familiar with. I use Visual Studio for coding and x64dbg to help me with function reversing.

[Nintendoman]

Well I wish you good luck!
Would mods be able to work with this? And can it be possible to split the actors' parts in areas to create even better and smoother animation (making more bones to work with by splitting the parts in halves or more)

[mdtaUK]

I was thinking of maybe a way to select parts of an actor, and move them independently frame by frame. Animating with actions will obviously work, and would most likely add keyframes to each body part under the hood which you can go back and tweak if you want. Oh, and there will most definitely be parenting of objects.

You could add a node into parts of each of the actors. So the head, hands, back, etc - which could be used as an anchor point for props you choose to attach. Sword in the hand. Hat on the head. backpack on the back. etc

We may have to be careful about use of original assets with this interpretation of 3D Movie Maker. And if there could be a separation between the tool itself, and all the assets included. There could be the possibility of importing assets on a per movie basis.

Having tool and assets separate could be a pre-emptive protection from any company getting upset with their characters, models, etc becoming expansions or asset packs.

[Movie Lover]

THIS IS THE NEXT ERA IN 3DMM.

THIS COMMUNITY IS THE BEST OLD FOURM COMMUNITY.

WE PREDATE THE REST, EVEN PPMB

[Mabdog]

Patreon, that's what I meant

[Nintendoman]

a
better
way
to
cut
frames

[Movie Lover]

Will you add an auto lip syncer for compatible models?

That feature is the main reason I still use The Movies

[French Fry]

Will there be native Mac/Linux binaries?

[Jayrod]

Cross-platformability is something I'd like to achieve in the long term but for right now my main focus is Windows. It might take awhile to port mostly because of all the dependencies 3DMM has on Windows API.

[Gorosaurus]

Yes yes yes! Wow!

Wow!


KEEP THIS GOING!!


Take my money, darn it!! TAKE IT!!

[Mabdog]

yeah how do we give you money?

[Jayrod]

I can set up a patreon page if anyone is actually serious about donating. I appreciate any help I can get, whether it's with code or coffee.

[Slime]

imo patreon makes more sense for gathering support from the general public (since its recurring and takes its own fee cut), so if that's what you intend on doing then yeah

if not advertising this outside of 3dmm.com, just a paypal address i think makes most sense. if needing to keep paypal separate, then a ko-fi

[Compcat]

Cool stuff!

[Gorosaurus]

I have $50 for you. That's like twice the cost of Gnomes DVD, and you've already outperformed that debacle

[Justin Wawrzonek]

Originally Posted by Gorosaurus

I have $50 for you. That's like twice the cost of Gnomes DVD, and you've already outperformed that debacle

Hey Man. Those refunds are coming! I still believe!

Also this looks fantastic. I would also toss some money at this.