Hi Everyone

I'm now preparing to release this latest version as the default build. Since the last build a couple of weeks ago I've been working on any bugs, testing on different headsets and adding a couple more features. I'll go through this in a little more detail.

Bugs and their solutions:

Cursor visibility
I've spent a long time trying to get the cursor to disappear correct in all circumstances. Each control mode has different was it works with the cursor. I've added hand tracking as well so there have been many configurations to consider. If you find that you are watching your media and the cursor is still there when you expect it to vanish let me know.

Passthrough:
To get passthrough working on Meta you have to installed the Meta Core SDK into Unity. It was being reported that Windows Mixed reality headsets were crashing when this was installed so I've converted the passthrough to use OpenXR and ARFoundation. This is the implementation that manufacturers are moving towards, however PC passthrough is the last thing to get the update. For this reason I'm using the ARFoundation implementation on the default release knowing that few if no headsets support it yet but also that Windows Mixed reality headset won't crash on startup and I'll be providing a Meta version of Whirligig for people with those headsets so they can get passthrough. Hopefully the manufacturers will eventually update all this so I don't have to build for different headsets.

Hand tracking (beta):
The hand tracking implementation was broken so I've fixed that. Hand tracking for PC is still not very well supported, which is why it's disabled as default. If you enable it and your headset doesn't support had tracking properly on PC yet you'll get a attempt as hand tracking but using the controllers to get finger positions. This isn't very good and it's advised to just turn off hand tracking.

New features - 3D Projector support:

I've been trying to add noneVR options that can take advantage of 3D and 360 degree content. Because of this I've included several updates to the 3D noneVR display. The latest addition is 3D project support.

As most, if not all 3D projectors will support side by side or over under footage I've added this to the player. So when enabled Whirligig UI will display sbs or ou and the stereo options will work correctly when set. The 3D will work with all the 3D content including 3D 360, allowing you to pan around using the mouse.

And Finally
Updating Whirligigs default release is nerve-racking as I don't want to break anyone's setup but I still want to continue to improve Whirligig. I've done a good amount of testing but if you find any issues please let me know.

Expect to see the Whirligig Steam page to change a lot over the coming weeks to highlight the new features and open up it's audience to a wider community of enthusiasts.

Thanks for your support and I hope you continue to enjoy using Whirligig long into the future :)

Happy watching

Phil

Hi Everyone,

I've been working on a lot of new things and fixing bugs along the way. Some of the new features are large but probably irrelevant to most, while others are smaller and beneficial to everyone.

This beta release marks the start of a testing phase before it becomes the default build and gets rolled out across all the different stores. Because of this, I'm not going to go into too much detail just yet—that’ll come with the default release—but I’ll go over some of the major changes and bug fixes. I’ll likely forget to include some things, so expect this list to grow.

Features

• Passthrough option added to the Themes menu for headsets that support it.
  
• Cropping video and chroma keying added.
  
• Browser optimized for large folders.
  
• Top and bottom menus now appear when using the full-screen cinema mode, allowing for play, pause, skip forward/back, and jump to position.
  
• 3D depth for non-VR moved to the Depth menu.
  
• Lenticular 3D option added. This is still experimental, and I’m continuing to tweak the output.
  
• Subtitles now have position and size options.
  
• Projection mapping for non-VR added, allowing you to use four projectors to create a 360-degree space. (This is a big update, but probably won’t be used by many.)

Bug Fixes

• 3D icon now updates more quickly.
  
• Skip forward/back now reveals the progress bar.
  
• Subtitles no longer appear behind the UI.
  
• Cursor hiding issues fixed.
  
• App now tests for VR, and switches to non-VR if no headset is found.
  
• Fixed passthrough material issues where some backgrounds were incorrectly visible.
  
• Menu now appears even if the screen is closer than the menu itself, allowing changes to be made.
  
• In Rooms, the UI no longer moves when something is blocking it—blockers are now hidden.
  
• Fixed issue where selecting half-width stereo would squash mono video.
  
• Arrow key navigation in the browser reinstated and improved.
  
• Fixed subtitle issue where metadata had the same name.
  
• Fixed issue with Windows mouse appearing in NoneVR.
  
• Fixed issue with mouse not appearing on edge when resizing the window,.

Plugin and Engine Updates

• Unity3D 6
  
• AVPro Video plugin
  
• VLC Video plugin

And here are some screenshots of the changes.







As you can see, a lot has changed. I’ve been working hard on improving reliability and fixing bugs, while also adding new features. But with so many updates, there's a good chance a few bugs slipped in. I’ll be testing throughout next week, but please let me know if you run into any issues so I can squash them before the default release.

And lastly, thank you for supporting me while I’ve been working on Whirligig. I’m a solo developer, so I take your feedback very seriously. Many of these updates and changes are a direct result of your input—without that, Whirligig wouldn’t be what it is today. I hope to continue improving it and making it the player I most want to use.

All the best, and happy watching!

Phil

[Edit] I've worked on and updated the browser so that it's much quicker and responsive in folder with large numbers of files or folder (text explorer not the thumbnail one). The new version is whirligig_v5.563.

Hi All

I've been working on a lot of updates some big and some small. I will be posting a full release on all these updates at the end of March, however I wanted to release this update as I think it will have some options that some people can make use off immediately.




I've added a new option for cropping your videos top, bottom, left and right. This also includes keying for transparency of certain colours. Keying of colours for use with videos using green screen will work well when using the passthrough option which has also been added.

These options required a good amount of shader development and I've tried to improve performance for these updates. Please let me know if you have any issues with tiling and stereo seperation in particular.

I hope you like this update. I've been working on a lot of features, some of which I've not gone into detail here but have made it into this beta release anyway. These include, subtitle position options, passthrough options, fixes to sound issues in VLC and improvements to non VR and fullscreen cinema video.

As mentioned, please let me know of any issues you come across and any feedback you might have.

If you want to show your appreciation of Whirligig a positive review is always welcome :)

All the best and happy watching

Phil

[edit - I've uploaded a new version 5.261 which should address some of the controllers being at weird angles. I've also done a load of testing on different headsets and have only found the hand tracking to work on the Quest 2 and 3. My implementation is using XRhands which is not hardware locked so if the other headsets support it it should work. I will have to continue to look into what headsets will allow hand tracking and make a compatibility list.

This will be interesting when I start building with the hand tracking for Standalone as I know both Pico and Quest support it so hopefully they will both pick it up. Regardless let me know your experiences and what you'd like to see :).]

Hi everyone

So I've been working on a load of updates including a bit of a overhaul of the VR controller detection system. This has included the addition of hand tracking. So a quick overview.

This is a quick post so lacking a bit of detail as I wanted to get this release out so people can try it. The control system has been worked on so let me know if you have any issues.

A quick note. Hand tracking isn't on as default. It will be disable in the settings/input menu. Switch it on and it should start working. I've only tested this with the Quest 3 but it should work on other headsets as well as it's using XRhands.

• Mouse right click plays/pauses.
  
• Mouse doesn't get locked to screen when playing in locked panning and full screen cinema mode.
  
• Direct audio option added to audio menu.
  
• Hand tracking.

This is the first release of this so it's a little rough around the edges. Hand tracking is a mystic art and anything that feels like it's working is a win. This is how it works.

Control panel use
If you open your palm up with your thumb out the control panel will appear on your palm. You can then push the buttons on your palm. They should do all the things you expect that it does.

Pinch menu use
Put your hand into a pinch gesture (without the palm one above) and the laser will link to your hand. You can then pinch to select items on the menus. This should work just like the controllers with the trigger.

Yes. Well no. This is the first release and I want to make it much more usable. This is the first release to give people a chance to try it and hopefully let me know what's working, what's not and how I can improve it. I will continue to work on it but your feedback is very welcome. Please let me know what you think :)

This was a quick release update but took a long time to do. Hopefully it works well and I very much want to hear what you think. Again, positive reviews are always welcome as well as feedback and bug reports.

I hope you like the update.

Happy watching :)

Phil

Hi Everyone

Here is the latest update to Whirligig with some major changes and improvements to improve performance, usability and bug fixes. There is a lot to talk about, so here we go.

• Shared location support. The VLC plugin has allowed me to provide network shared locations such as SMB.
  
• 4 extra shortcut options to save too.
  
• New root browsing system allowing you to browse local drive or shared locations.
  
• Code optimisation to improve load speeds and unability.
  
• UI improvements to both list and thumbnail views.

• Hover state applied to buttons where possible.
  
• UI elements reduced down to increase loading times and unify UI elements.
  
• Scrollbar menus universal design.
  
• Buttons, sliders, toggles and menus universal design.

• Rooms have been split up into 360 degree image based rooms and full 3D rooms.
  
• Two 3D rooms removed, the loft and the the loft 2. These both were causing issues with loading and playback. They will return at some point so if you miss them a lot let me know.
  
• Brightness option added to 360 degree image based rooms to make for a more comfortable experience.
  
• Brightness can fade when playing so that it feels like the lights have gone down when watching your content.

• Output options added. Mono, Stereo (best for VR), quad, surround, 5.1 and 7.1. This allows you to use Whirligig as a desktop player and use the surround sound options in 5.1 videos sending the output to your amp.
  
• Media Foundation surround options now have linked slider options to change left/right and rear left/right simultaneously.
  
• mute button added to audio menu.
  
• Spatialize audio option added to surround sound menu for 3D sound.

• Subtitle system changed to allow you to select your desired subtitle track and then solely turn that one off and on.
  
• Subtitle repeater input binding option. I've created a thing called Subtitle Repeater, which will turn on your selected subtitle, rewind your video 10 seconds and then 20 seconds later turn off the subtitles. Good if you didn't quite catch what someone said.

• Unity Engine updated to 2022.3.25f1.
  
• AVPro video plugin updated to 3.0.
  
• VLC video plugin updated to 1.9.
  
• Implementation of shader removal to improve startup times.

• Vsync on/off added to quality menu. This can help with screen tearing and flashing on some systems.
  
• Splash screen and icon updates.
  
• Input drop downs have been organised to make browsing them easier.
  
• Cinema mode fullscreen and locked. This options when desktop monitoring is on and Cinema is selected as projection will make that video full screen in the same way a standard desktop video player would work.

If this latest update causes issues there are a few things you can try.

Return to the previous default release.
Here is a quick tutorial to show how to do this.
https://youtu.be/z9pv-cgn4IE

and here is the Whirligig version you will need to select to return to the previous version.


Reset Whirligig
There are a couple of ways to do this. You can do this from within Whirligig in the about menu.


If you can't get to that menu for whatever reason you can reset Whirligig manually by deleting the Whirligig roaming folder.
Close Whirligig.
Navigate here :
C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming
Find the folder called 'Whirligig' and rename or delete it.
Restart Whirligig.

I don't store any information in the registry so by removing this folder you are return Whirligig to it's factory default before it has run for the first time.

A lot of the updates, features and bug fixes I do are due to user feedback. I very much build Whirligig on what information I get back from users and my own desires for the player. If you wish to give feedback here's a list on how to get the information to me as best as possible.

Suggestions
Any features you think will benefit Whirligig please let me know. The Steam forum for Whirligig is a good place to post as I check them regularly and when a feature is suggest it's good to get feedback from the community.

Bugs
If you run into a bug then I will do my best to fix it and the more information I can get the better. You can contact me directly phileday@yahoo.co.uk or post on the forum. Here is a list of useful information you can provide me that will help me track down the problem.

• Headset used.
  
• Country you're running Whirligig from. (some countries uses different syntax, which is easy for me to miss on my setup.
  
• Version you are using. Default release or beta.
  
• A copy of the roaming folder. All information in the roaming folder is readable with a text editor. Information about the projection and previous settings are stored about each media you watch. Problems in the roaming can sometimes happen and a full reset can fix some issues.
  
• A link to the media that is causing the problem.
  
• Anything you think might be relevant about your setup.

Reviews
If you like Whirligig review it. It helps to tell people that it's still in active development and also give them a heads up of what to expect. I also get a warm feeling when I get praise :)

I've been working on this release for some time now and my main goal has been to improve overall performance, bug fix and add network support. I've also added features where I can and tried to improve the overall experience. I hope that you find the updates beneficial and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

I have lots of ideas for future releases and I would love to hear what you would like to see also :D

Thank you for support me in my Whirligig development and finally, happy watching.

Phil

Hi again

I'd like this to be the next default release but I'm still having a couple of accounts of a black screen on load. I'm working on fixes for this but as I can't recreate it I don't really know what's going on. Hopefully this latest build will improve things as it has some more fixes and an updated engine.

I've just managed to get a black screen but noticed my Quest had disconnected. On re-connection it appeared in the headset and also on the desktop again. It should of appeared on the desktop anyway but Meta headsets pause the app when the headset is removed so I think that mucked around with it. Again any hints on why this might be happening for some people please let me know.


Subtitles
I've reexamined the subtitle system, found a couple of bugs and made a couple of changes. So now in subtitles you can select the language you wish to use and then when you switch on the subtitles it will switch the selected subtitle on. This information is saved as well so it will load the subtitles you previously selected.

In addition to this I've added a new feature called Subtitle Repeater. This can be bound to an input key to use.

What does it do I hear you cry. When watching a movie on Netflix, Prime etc I sometimes don't always understand what someone has said. This feature when pressed rewinds the film 10 seconds, turns on the subtitles for 20 seconds and then turns them off again. It's designed to stop me having to go through a load of menus to turn on the subtitles and then the same process again to turn them off.

UI update
People may or may not be happy with this. I've changed the buttons on the main UI.


[edit] I brought the quit back replacing the audio menu button. It felt weird it not being there :)

Basically I've removed the quit button and the menus menu button and replaced them with subtitle and audio options. The thinking behind this is that quit is available through the VR interface (SteamVR etc) and I don't think people are using the menus menu to switch back and forth between different menus that often.

If this is not the case please let me know. I'm already missing the quit button but I'm not sure if it needs to be on the main UI.

Fixes
I've fixed a couple of issues that were reported including a lot of the shortcuts not working on the shortcut menu (although I still have a little work to do on this), issues with the subtitle menu and some other smaller issues in the UI.


I want this to be pushed to the default build but I'm concerned about the reports of a black screen. I don't know if these are small issues which will require a separate build for people having the problem or if this is more universal.

If anyone comes across this issue I would be very interested in getting a copy of your Whirligig roaming folder, which is located here: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Whirligig

my email is phileday@yahoo.co.uk

Hopefully you like the updates and thanks for your support.

Happy watching

Phil

Hi Everyone

Another week and another beta. I've continued to work on overall improvements in UI, usability and optimization. I've also wanted to make Whirligig a viable desktop player so I've included some updates relating to that. This also includes bug fixes and probably additional bugs. Please let me know if you come across anything and I'll do my best to fix it.

• Set cinema mode to full screen. This makes your cinema playback act like a standard desktop player making the screen fill the window.
  
• Rooms is now better organised into 360 stereo (rooms that are 3d overunder images) and 3D environments (full 3D environments). In addition the "360 Stereo" rooms have a brightness control that can be applied continuesly or dim when the media is playing.
  
• Audio output. Now you can change your audio output device. So if you wish to output to a surround sound system you can. The options are currently Mono, Stereo (best for VR), Quad, surround, 5.1 and 7.1. These options are only applied when using Media Foundation and WinRT as all other video paths have direct access. I'll be looking at making it the same with VLC at a later date.

I'm going to making a good amount of tutorial videos about all the options in Whirligig. I'll be posting regularly these updates to the Steam video section and my youtube channel. So look out for those :)


Please report any bugs you come across. You can either post in this news feed, o the discussion board or email me phileday@yahoo.co.uk.

User reviews are always welcome, more so if they're are positive :) Please let everyone know if you like Whirligig, it helps to inform people before purchase and helps me know I'm still making something that people like.

I'm hoping this will be the version I either release as default or close too. Development still continues and with all the changes recently I'm now in a better position to add more features. I hope that what I'm making is being enjoyed by everyone and look forward to hearing all your comments :)

Happy watching

Phil

Hi everyone

After the last release and all the work on the browser I received a couple of comments about Whirligig failing to open. I started examining this issue and discovered on the first run of Whirligig, Whirligig would take a very long time to open while being unresponsive giving the impression that it had crashed. Every time after that Whirligig would open much quicker. So down the rabbit hole I went and I've been improving loading times, reducing overheads and fixing issues to make Whirligig faster than ever. I'll go over some of the improvements.

Rooms would load into memory at start which slowed things down quite a bit. I've changed this so that Whirligig only loads the room when when you're using it.

I've temporarily removed two rooms (the 3D ones at the end) as I need to determine what overheads these have. I hope to improve all the rooms in the future.

I've done the same as the rooms and they will only load in when you choose them.

I've spent a long time reducing all the texture for the UI as many were duplicates. This has reduced resource use and allowed me to standardise a lot of the look of the UI's. This will massively help me in the future when adding new features and improving the UI.

• Added another page of blank backgrounds so you can add more of your own.
  
• 
  
• Two new mapping input options for Rotate. Rotate exists as a projection option and a position options. They work differently but now you can choose either one and they are better labeled.
  
• 
  
• Vsync as an option to the quality menu. Some people have experienced black flashes in either the headset or the monitor. Enabling this can remove this issue.
  
• 
  
• Reset all has been added to the position menu.

I've also spent a large amount of time fixing issues as I go. Any time I've come across a problem I've address it so hopefully many of the little problems will be ironed out.

I'm not going to list them here as there are a lot of small ones and many of which may have been added during the optimisation process. If you reported a bug and I've addressed or attempted to address the issue I'll post in the respective forum/email to let you know.

I'm currently replacing a lot of the core code so any issues you have please let me know as I'm in the best position to address them right now. The more bugs reported the more I can fix and I very much appreciate when people let me know there is an issue I can fix :)

Well if you do, let me know with a good review :D Me like many developers thrive on positive feedback and are destroyed by bad reviews, which cut much deeper than a good one helps.

In all seriousness though a positive review really helps me to know that the changes I'm making are improving Whirligig and that I'm still providing something that people want to use. That also goes for feature requests, bug reports and general questions. I'm a lone developer and rely a lot on feedback to make Whirligig better. If there are ways I can make your experience better let me know.

If you are having issues with Whirligig I will understand if you write a negative review and it will make me sad :( I would however appreciate if you let me know what the issue was so I can improve Whirligig for the future :)

Thanks to everyone who enjoys Whirligig, you're support is very much appreciated. I look forward to hearing your suggestions for future updates.

Happy Watching

Phil

[edit] I've had a couple of comments regarding it not loading. I've made some changes including moving the permissions thing for networks so that you'll only be asked if you wish to use the network feature. I've also tried to optimise the startup code as it seems to take a long to to start when started for the first time. I'll continue to look at this over the next few days. The new version is Whirligig 5.11

Hi everyone

I've often had the request for a network location support feature on both Stand alone headsets and PC based headsets. This has been very difficult to implement as I'm not that well versed in network protocols but with the update to the VLC plugin this has opened up the options to include network browsing. It's taken me a while but here is the first release that includes this feature :)

As this has meant a rewrite of the browsing system in Whirligig I've taken the opportunity to improved and optimise the code so it should now run faster and hopefully more stable than before. Here is an example of the new Explorer:



Here is a rundown of the changes:

[Warning, your current shortcuts will be lost, explanation follows]
1 : You'll see that I've added 4 new shortcut options and also had them so they will display the folder name of the shortcut that they are linked two. I've also adjusted the way they are saved in the 'ini' file as they were using a comma as a separator, which is a legal character in folder names. This causes issues if the folder had that character. I've changed this so the conflict won't arise. However this does mean your Shortcuts with be removed on first load as the old system isn't compatible.

2: Local and network browsing has been added. Local will display your local drives (c:\, d;\ etc) and Network will show any Network locations that can be found.

3: With the addition on Network browsing I wanted to find the most space officiant way to improve the browser and also make the browser identical on both standalone and PC. I've removed the direct access to the drives and widened the Folder window. I've also extended address bar to make it easier to see where you are.


LibVLCSharp protocols
To make the network access as future proof as possible I've used the LibVLCSharp network access system to allow the locations to be viewed. This means that Whirligig is using the same system as VLC to browser and playback network located media.

UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) as well as SMB are supported. Basically anything that VLC will find should be found by Whirligig.

Video playback
All video path and image playback will work with network locations. So you should be able to choose your proffered playback engine such as Media Foundation.


No Network Password support
This is the first version of the network implementation and as such I've not implemented any password options for shares that require username and passwords. This is, again another difficult implementation and I'll be working on it for up and coming versions. I would like to know how much this is a problem for people as well. In using the VLC network browsing I've noticed it doesn't ask for the username/password. So I'm not sure how much this is expected anyway.

Network shares not being listed or being listed more than once
As I'm using the VLC implementation I'm reliant on the response that it provides. If the plugin doesn't give me the address then I can't show it. I've also noticed that sometimes the same address will appear multiple times.

I am working in checks for these issues, such as checking if the network share has any folders, checking the id doesn't match other locations. These improves will come in over time as I become more aware of them.

Help from you
Basically up until the implementation of this feature I haven't been using a shared network location. Because of this I'm sure I'll miss features that most people want and will need to fix issues for future versions.

If you could tell me what is missing, if you are finding that it's working and any feedback that might help me to improve the feature please let me know :)


Browser
I've rewritten about 80 percent of the code that ran the browser to improve overall speeds, implement the network features, improve the cross support for thumbnail view and list view and open up the ability to add new features and improvements.

I have some features requests such as a search option but are there other things you would also like to see? Also is the new browser causing any problems?

UI interaction
I've also rewritten some of the UI interaction to allow better compatibility and more reliable usage. Previously things like hover over sprite change didn't work and sometimes buttons would get stuck etc. This update should fix a lot of these issues making the overall experience feel more solid and responsive.

As this is a change that effects all interaction in the UI there might be issues that I need to resolve. If you come across anything not working the way you expect please let me know.


Improved UI
I've worked on bringing the designs of the UI buttons, toggles and sliders together so that they use the same assets and looks. This should make the whole experience feel more universal and coherent.

Additional updates
I've worked on optimisation to improve overall performance, added link features to the surround sound options, updated plugins, SDK's and the Unity engine version.

This update makes quite a lot of changes that effect the whole of Whirligig. The browser need a complete rethink and UI interaction was broken and needed updating. Because of this please let me know of any issues. I've tested Whirligig extensively during developement of these new features but there are always things that slip through the cracks. It's likely that if something in the UI is no longer working then it will be an easy fix to update for the next version.

Apart from all that. Thank you all again for your support over the years and happy watching :)

Phil

This update should fix the issue with the WMR controllers not mapping properly.

Something I've noticed is that the thumbstick buttons open the SteamVR dashboard and appear to be set to be their default. Because of this I've removed these from mapping in Whirligig and indicated that they open the dashboard in the inputs menu. If this isn't desired please let me know.

Happy watching

Phil