Grid Visualizer - Developers

In order to keep up with bug reports, feedback and suggestions I have decided to create this new thread for the Grid Visualizer. Here it is in all its buggy and freeze prone glory: Grid Visualizer! [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/eq6Fbd1.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/jwu87DM.png[/IMG] [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8271791/Grid%20Visualizer-Dbg.rar[/url] This version is different from the one I posted on the thread, so if you can download and try this out instead of the old version it would be great! Right now this is way pre-alpha, especially the Live mode, which I would really appreciate if you can test and give me feedback on. You can toggle live mode by pressing G. [B]Known Issues[/B] - I believe there is a problem with Live for Win 8 users, but since I do not have Win 8 yet (I'll get my home computer back in a couple of weeks and I will install it as soon as possible) and try to replicate any and all errors. But the rest of the program (playlist/song visualization) should work on Win 8 too. If by some miracle you have gotten the Live mode to work on Win 8 please let me know! - With certain keypresses/combinations crashes, glitches, hangups etc... might occur. If you can tell me exactly how that glitch happened and if it happens all the time with that combination or just once I should be able to fix the specific bug quite quickly. If your bug is Live mode related please copy the contents of the "debug_info.txt" which hopefully will give me some insight on what went wrong. Also please post your sound card, number/name/type of sound related peripherals you have attached, which one you are using as your main output and whether you have input devices (such as microphones) attached. If you could also try the Live mode again by removing all sound devices except one for actually outputting sound and noting if it works then or not would be much appreciated. I will keep posting in the thread and update the OP with new versions/developments/changes. All criticisms, suggestions, bug reports, feedback of any kind is appreciated and thank you for trying Grid Visualizer!

Works fine on Win7 x64. The live mode as well. It's very nice! Implement full screen and moving/sizing.

[QUOTE=EZTEQ;41994518]Works fine on Win7 x64. The live mode as well. It's very nice! Implement full screen and moving/sizing.[/QUOTE] Fullscreen exists. Press F1.

Any chance of a OS X release in the future?

Live mode works fine in Windows 8, looks great!

Would a Linux, or Mac version be possible?

Interesting application! A few things I'd like to see: - A simple GUI to load another file, change size of the screen, etc. (hello [URL="http://sfgui.sfml-dev.de/"]SFGUI[/URL]) - Ability to change the scale. - Show the frequencies that are represented below the squares. (e.g. 50 Hz - 200 Hz - 500 Hz)

Thank you all for the comments and I am quite pleased that finally the Live mode is working on Windows 8. Currently there are only two things that stand in the way of an OSX or Linux release (which I would love to work on): 1- The open file dialogue uses the Windows API, but that should be easy enough to port that to Linux and OSX, I'll have to learn more about the various options on how to accomplish that but this seems like a fun and not very difficult challenge. 2- The biggest problem would be the Live mode, because it currently uses WASAPI to get input from the output device. I am sure this can be worked on as well, but since BASS_WASAPI also comes with the FFT functions I'll have to learn more about working in the FFT myself or something. All in all this will be the major obstacle. Again it is definitely something I would love to work on but it will take much longer. Fullscreen is possible through F1. Moving is actually very easy to implement, I disabled the toolbar on the top on purpose because I feel it looks more sleek, but by making the toolbar toggle-able the window should be movable. I'll definitely add it very soon. Resizing is possible with the toolbar too, but since the grid is dependent on the resolution of the window and messing with it in runtime distorts the hell out of the visuals and/or adds blank spaces or half boxes at the edges. It is something to think about though. [editline]28th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=TomsonTom;41996671]Interesting application! A few things I'd like to see: - A simple GUI to load another file, change size of the screen, etc. (hello [URL="http://sfgui.sfml-dev.de/"]SFGUI[/URL]) - Ability to change the scale. - Show the frequencies that are represented below the squares. (e.g. 50 Hz - 200 Hz - 500 Hz)[/QUOTE] By pressing T and O you can add new songs to the playlist and create a new playlist. I am not saying this as an excuse, I just wanted to give you a heads up. While a GUI sounds like a good idea (and I worked on one for sometime in one of the past versions) SFGUI loves to crash on exit for me which bugs me to hell and back, plus I feel having a GUI interferes with the simple/minimal look I want, but maybe having a GUI display toggle might be a good idea. I have to clean up the code a lot before I can even begin to add a GUI though so that might be a while. I assume you mean the scale of the frequencies. Right now it is logarithmically scaled with 2.7 Hz bins. If you can explain what exactly you would like by changing the scale I would appreciate it. Showing frequencies would be relatively easy to do, but making it visually appealing will be a challenge. However I would like to stress that this is not meant to be a scientific/accurate spectrum analyzer. I wrote this to create fancy visuals that change with the music. While it is not inaccurate, the actual frequencies of the sounds mean very little in this context. But I'll find a way to add a toggleable switch for frequency viewing. I would love to hear any other ideas/thoughts/comments regarding the Grid Visualizer. However I really do not want it to turn into something full of bloated features. Especially now with Live mode, I simply want it to be a pretty visualizer, something you would set up fullscreen with a playlist in the background before a party and let it run for as long as you want. I would especially appreciate any thoughts and ideas on improving the visuals/graphical side of things as well.

Great thing! And all done with SFML?

[QUOTE=Krizzu;41997057]Great thing! And all done with SFML?[/QUOTE] SFML for graphics, FMod and BASS for the sound.

By the way, do you have any specific reason why you didn't use [URL="http://sfml-dev.org/documentation/2.1/group__audio.php"]SFML Audio Module[/URL]?

I really love it! So smooth and sleek :). But it would be 100x better if u could get music data from microphone/system sound.

SFML Audio Module is quite limited in its scope, it is mostly designed for playing songs/sounds quickly and efficiently for a game not analyse the sounds themselves, but FMod and BASS both have good frequency analysis functions. I was only using FMod when there was no Live mode, but I require the BASS_WASAPI library to have access to the speaker output. [editline]28th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=kobilica;41997383]I really love it! So smooth and sleek :). But it would be 100x better if u could get music data from microphone/system sound.[/QUOTE] It has that option, the Live mode. Just press G and it will visualize the system sounds. It is somewhat prone to errors though, especially on Win8 so please let me know about your success/failure. Adding microphone visualization is also on my list.

if you set your mic to "listen to this device", it will work in live mode. [editline]28th August 2013[/editline] Also this visualizer is absolutely amazing. Please consider making it a Winamp plugin.

Testing on Windows 8 64 bit, works with no problems.