Paradigm Visual programming Implementation language C++ | Typing discipline Strong | |
Designed by Robert Wenzel, Jonatan Wallmander Developer Vovoid Media Technologies AB Stable release 0.5.1 / December 14, 2014; 2 years ago (2014-12-14) | ||
VSXu (VSX Ultra) is an OpenGL-based (hardware-accelerated), modular programming environment with its main purpose to visualize music/audio data and create 3D effects in real-time. Available for Windows and GNU/Linux. It is currently released as free software under terms of the GNU General Public License v2 and maintained by Vovoid Media Technologies AB. VSXu is built on a modular plug-in-based architecture so anyone can extend it and or make visualization presets ("visuals" or "states").
Contents
Creating content
VSXu is divided in 2 main parts: VSXu Player and an Editor (VSXu Artiste). The player loads and runs the visuals created in Artiste.
In Artiste, the user interconnects modules visually represented as boxes with inputs and outputs. A module always produces something and has various parameters which in turn can be fed with the result of another module. There are about 200 different modules which can produce bitmaps, handle textures, generate 3d geometry (meshes) and render geometry.
There are also modules for reacting to sound, playing sound and reacting to joystick input.
VSXu implements a custom, minimalistic file format with LZMA compression and can compile visuals with 3d meshes and textures (JPEG or PNG) in the same file.
Usage
VSXu is intended to be used both as an end-user program ("VSXu Player", "VSXu Artiste") and its LGPL-licensed "VSXu Engine" as an embedded Visual programming language engine that can be integrated into independent projects. VSXu profiler can be compiled into C++ programs to measure call stack and performance and collect data.
History
VSXu has its roots in the Sonique music visualization development community and was first conceived in 2001, then published in 2004. Main developers are Jonatan Wallmander, Robert Wenzel (better known as CoR) and Joakim Fännick.