Jinx! V2.4 – A new generator and a lot of improvements

Today I am happy to release the new Jinx! Version 2.4. I did a lot of work behind the scenes and did a lot of optimizing. With the new version we get a completely new effect generator: Raindrops. It is a water ripple effect which can give you some really cool pictures. There has also been improvements to the Scrolling Text effect, so you can now use 380 chars instead of 254 and the perspective transform is now available for alle four directions. You can further use the last line of a file if you import the scrolling text in realtime as well as making cool time driven countdowns with the new $COUNT variable inside the Scrolling text Generator.

I also implemented some random color options into the falling rain and expanding shapes effect including a primary color switch. To round up the effect modifications, we also got a new release and fade time option inside the strobe effect. Just look at the new demo scenes (Cool Drops, Liquid Color Wars, Audio Color Drops, Strobe Analyzer) to see what can be done with the new features.

Some modifications has also been done to the gui skins. The skin files will now reside in the skin directory directly inside your jinx installation and we will be able to use background images inside the skins. I added some new skins, so you can take a look at this feature. Another small but usefull modification will affect the matrix regions. If any region is active, the region button will stay pressed, so you can directly see any active settings. The region preview on the matrix while adjusting is now switchable and will stay off as default setting and it will also only stop the corresponding effect generator instead of all. So you can adjust the regions while your show is running without flashing your audience on the matrix.

As always, please take a look inside the manual to get more information about how the new features work.

Changelog:

  • implement raindrop/water ripple effect with random colors and audio trigger
  • implement primary color option for random colors into fading pixels
  • implement random color into expanding shapes and falling rain
  • implement directions for perspective transform inside scrolling text
  • make text from file inside scrolling text switchable between first and last line in file
  • increase max chars on scrolling text from 254 to 380
  • implement countdown function $COUNT into scrolling text
  • add release/fade time to strobe effect
  • make region preview on matrix switchable with default setting: off
  • only stop corresponding generator on region setting instead of all generators
  • make region buttons switchable and make it stay pressed if the region is active
  • implement flip left/right and flip top/bottom into dvi window
  • implement instance tag into gui options to name a jinx instance in title bar
  • make color schemes to support background images
  • add additional color schemes
  • change main, scene and chaser window calculation to correctly place the controls on windows 10
  • synchronize all generators and output processing to avoid interferences for big matrices and slow computers
  • fix image viewer to take care about transparent gifs and png files with alpha channel
  • optimize audio processing
  • redesigned program Icon
  • changed codesign certificate (see special post earlier this day)