Whirligig News

Hi Everyone

So I've released a new version of Whirligig in Betas, version 4.92. This version has some big updates under the hood including a move to the latest version of Unity which should improve stability and help for future updates. I've also worked on some of the explorer stuff including the loading of thumbnails.

Explorer

• Thumbnails now cache the stills they make so that the next load will be a lot quicker.
  
• Thumbnails only load if in the viewport so loading a folder with a lot of images/videos won't spend the whole time caching every piece of media.
  
• Desktop mirroring has been looked at and and a couple of things fixed.
  
• Webcam has also had that.
  
• Early integration of NDI support. Still early days on this but it's has some support and it's development will be dictated by the interest from the community.
  

SteamVR SDK and Oculus SDK news
So I've been stuck in a quandary for a while. On the Steam Store Whirligig contains the Oculus SDK and the SteamVR SDK and picks the one to use based on your headset. On the Oculus Store the SteamVR SDK has to be removed. Oculus has updated there Oculus SDK dropping support for Unity 2019, which means that I've got to update the Unity version to use any new features in the releases of the Oculus SDK.

I did the update installed all the latest SDK's and ran into a bug that appears to be in the Oculus SDK. Basically the Oculus SDK causes Whirligig to crash on load. Finding no solution I have chosen to remove the Oculus SDK from the Steam Store version. This has meant quite a few updates and bug fixes that I've been working through.

So my question here is, is removing the Oculus SDK from the Steam Store version a big deal? I've kept all the same features and I think it'll will help Whirligig work more consistently on Steam. What do you guys think?

And Finally
So give it a go, let me know of any bugs, features you'd like and any thoughts you have. I continue to work on Whirligig and don't intend to stop although I don't have as much time as I used to so progress isn't always good. Despite that I don't intend to stop my work on it and very much appreciate your thoughts.

Apart from that, keep cool (I'm in the UK we're having a heat wave) or warm depending on where you live. Until the next update, happy watching :)

Hi everyone

I've finally manged to get Whirligig on Applab. It's been on SideQuest (itch.io) for a while but I wanted to move that build to applab to make it easier to get on the Quest.

The reason I'm posting here is that I want to get a few people to check it out and let me know how they get on. Basically if they have any problems etc.

I'm offering free codes to anyone who already own it on Itch.io/Sidequest and that won't change indefinitely. I'm also offering codes to anyone who owns Whirligig on any other store/platform. So if you've got it on PC on Steam for example give me a shout and I'll send you a code. That offer might change depending on how many people take me up on it.

So how do you get your code? Email me [email protected] with any details you have to say you've already purchased it and I'll send you back a code.

Probably the biggest thing in the last update is the positional sound for 5.1 audio. This is also in the Quest version (only in the Exo Player video path). It's something I've wanted in there for a while :)

So give me an email. Feel free to ask me any questions here as well.

All the best and happy watching.

Phil

Hi everyone

So we have a new update with some exciting improvements. First a couple of images:





Thumbnails option added to Explorer
You can now choose a thumbnail view in the explorer. This is a relatively new update and I think it will struggle with folders with a large number of files. Give it a go though and let me know what you want improved on it.


Audio menu
With audio getting more complex I've given it it's own menu. This allows for more control and new features to be added.

Audio Tracks
With the new menu I've been able to provide a much easier way to select audio tracks and also give more details on what each track is. Simply click the track you want and it'll be selected, also which ever audio track selected will be remembered when the same media file is opened later.

Surround Sound
So this is the exciting one. Basically I've wanted to be able to have positional audio for multi track videos for a long time. Many videos come with 5.1 audio and all the programs you use to play them merges them down to a stereo output. This is generally OK for headphones but with VR you are missing the opportunity to place that audio in a 3D space. This also allows you to take advantage of spatial sound. With direct access to each channel I can now place them in 3D space and give volume options for all channels. If the dialog is too quite you can boost the centre channel for example.

Other options also include showing speakers so you can see where the audio is coming from and lock rotation so that is plays as stereo instead of being head tracked.

Subtitles
With the update to the audio track selection I've also worked on including this for subtitles. There is also support for muxed subtitles in Media Foundation (These will be displayed at their correct times but the time they disappear is based on the length of the subtitle, hopefully I'll be able to fix this soon).

Trying the beta
It's very easy to try the betas but if you've not done it before I've made a tutorial to help:
https://youtu.be/z9pv-cgn4IE

Thoughts
This is a big update and for this reason there is a good chance it'll still have bugs in some way. Please let me know if you run into any problems [email protected] or post on the Whirligig Steam forum. I'd also like to know what other options you would want regarding these new features. Are there some kick ass features I could include in the next update :)

Final Thoughts
Work on Whirligig still continues and will continue to continue. Whirligig is a long term project for me and I intend to support it as long as I can. In saying this I also have other jobs so I can't work on Whirligig full time so updates tend to come in spurts. Many have suggested new features and bug reports and I continue to fix and add these in subsequent updates. Not always straight away depending on complexity.

All suggestions are welcome, and I really appreciate feedback. Most of the features I add have been requested so it's worth suggesting something if there is a feature you'd really like.

I hope you like the updates and I look forward to your feedback.

Happy watching :)

Phil

Hi

It's been requested a few times to have thumbnails show up in the explorer. In this update I've added a system that allows you to switch to a thumbnail view.

So this is the first version of this to be released. I think it's working ok, it does go through each file so if you have a very large number of files in a folder it might have problems. I'm hoping that all you can let me know what you think, what problems you have and what improvements I can make.

Here are some screenshots that illustrate the update:





So as I said it's the first iteration of this and will probably have problems. So be careful not to throw too much at it to begin with. I very much want to here everyone's feedback on this :)

Hope you like it :)

Phil

Hi everyone

So after the default update I've been working on all your feedback and bug reports and done my best to fix any issues with the latest version. This is now available as a beta whirligig_early_access_v.4.886 for people to give it a go before it gets pushed to the main build.

What issues have I addressed. Well I've struggled a lot with the VR SDK's and Unity3D so I've spent a lot of time trying to get the Oculus SDK and the SteamVR SDK working nicely together. Hopefully this should fix issues with VR not always working. It should also mean that the SteamVR control panel should only open when using a non Oculus headset. Oculus will use it's own SDK. Apart from that update (which was a pain in the arse to get working) I've worked on getting issues fixed where countries where they use "," for a decimal (this is mainly resume feature issues), small fixes, general stability and any issues that people have had since the last default update.

I've also removed the different loading options at start up as I don't think they were helping and were causing more problems that solving.

If you've not tried the betas before then here is a tutorial to help you get start, hint, it's really easy to try the betas in Steam:
https://youtu.be/z9pv-cgn4IE

So please give it a try and let me know if you have any problems. I'll be updating the default with this very soon so if I can quash any bugs before then the better.

Happy watching

Phil

One last thing. If you have Whirligig on the Oculus store and want to try the beta on Steam email [email protected] and I'll send over a code. The reverse is true as well. I am very close to updating that version as well. This is the last push before I hit go on the Oculus Store version.