The long anticipated 🌞summer🌞 release of AudioSpace is finally here, and not a day too soon as tomorrow it's already September. But the wait was worth it: now you can choose to enjoy AudioSpace as a windowed application with a normal set of title bar controls. Its highlight is automatic viewpoints: there's no longer need to move around to find the best camera angle. For those who prefer the freedom of movement of the earlier versions, fear not: "AudioSpace VR" provides now this, as well as the full VR experience when your headset is detected or your OpenXR Runtime (such as SteamVR) is running,
Also new are the three big features of this release to level things up:
- User defined shaders - that is, your own visualizations! Many shaders already included, including ray marching examples and the kaleidoscope effect. Experiment freely with existing shaders (they can be reloaded runtime just be re-selecting the shader) and add your own under Documents/AudioSpace/shaders.
- Fluid simulations (liquid and gas).
- 3D models: customize your visualization environment to your liking.
- add your 3D models under Documents/AudioSpace/models (one subfolder / model)
- set model position, scale etc. via a config.ini file (created automatically)
- supports glTF models (.gltf and .glb), more file formats may be added later
- animations supported, tangent space normals required (for now)
- a fully operational space station included, of course :)
To top things off, here's more:
- new ROOM modes: 3D spectrum - 3 variations of spectrum columns in 3D. This and some other ROOM modes now have multiple variations (small sub-buttons inside the main button).
- improved cursor visibility in all experiences; VR mode has now a beam cursor for motion controllers for aiming with your hands (instead of eyes like in the earlier versions)
- help texts are now shown for param sliders (also with shaders)
- switched from 8-bit to 32-bit textures on all panels (quality improvement)
- Unreal Engine version updated from 4.26 to 5.3
- on Earth, day has dawned and ground details are more visible towards the sunrise
- new configuration options:
- maxChannels: limit number of visualized channels (default is 2 channels)
- autoSaveViewpoint: in the non-VR AudioSpace, save the most recent viewpoint always to the current preset (on by default)
- allowMultiplePanelsPerWall: by default there's now only one visualization panel per each wall, this option allows to have many
- alwaysSyncPanels: for copying visualization style changes to all panels with the same mode; this behavior can also be temporarily toggled by pressing Shift when changing things in menu (syncing panels is useful e.g. with a shader such as the "fractal space" on multiple walls)
As usual, this update is free for current owners of AudioSpace. Newcomers are also in luck, as the price will remain the same as before. Looking forward to see your next AudioSpace visualizations of your favorite music. 🎵🎬 Enjoy!