Important!

If this version causes problems for you, you can use previous versions.

They are available under Settings -> Betas along with release date.

About this release

While this release doesn't have any new big features or that many GUI improvements, it is actually a quite large release under the hood. The graphics engine has seen a lot of work also.

New Features

Generic

• Partially using new font rendering (MSDF). This should look better and prevent GPU drivers from meddling with anti aliasing for text to render correctly. This has been an issue on mainly AMD cards which have a worse anti aliasing algorithm (or so it seems). As this has been proven over time, it could be rolled out to more places. Some text is thus still rendered with the old system.
  

Pro Controller / Player

Beta: New networked control API

A new networked API (TCP) to remote control the "controller". This first version aims to cover anything on the Player pane. That is, everything available to you after you've pressed "PLAYBACK CONTROLS" in the controller. The API is enabled by default and to read more about it it's best to explore the examples in the client reference implementation on our github.

https://github.com/vovoid/vzx_udp_client

Most (if not all) functionality is covered by these examples which have also served as tests akin to TDD.

Bug Fixes

Generic

• Documentation viewer had a bug where it would not reset the mouse cursor back from a pointing hand for hyperlinks. This can still happen but is much better now.
  
• Lots of bug fixes for visuals running on AMD, too numerous to list here
  
• VRAM usage improvements. Roughly 50% saved (no longer needed) in 1080p and 70% in 2160p. If you are interested in the details, we have a detailed report here: https://www.vzx-visualizer.com/vzx_creative/vzx_pro_player_visual_vram_optimization_results.pdf
  

Pro Controller / Player

• When a state has been loaded by the auto loader and one goes to save, the loaded state is set in the default suggestion of the filename.
  
• FX level set in the "audio" -> "properties" pane would be overwritten with the FX level set for an item in the play queue when the player would progress to the next visual.
  

Artiste

• Dolphin example showed a regression in the bone / node calculation. This is hopefully fixed now.
  
• Imported point lights are now affected by global matrix stack - that is, the scene graph translate/rotate modules.
  
• The multi-channel slider controller (for float3 and float4) did not render its gray area showing which parameter it was controlling. While a small thing, it helps when one has multiple of these open.
  
• Spotlights - also with support for volumetric cone rendering, this feature is working but might need more work. We'll likely tune it more when we use it ourselves.
  
  • Support for 1D light profile
    
  • Support for 2D "projected" cookie texture