Phosphor 0.3.1

What's new in 0.3.1

More from the VDMX and MadMapper list.

• Shaders reload when you save them: edit an ISF file in any editor and Phosphor picks up the change in a couple of seconds.
• 8 colour looks built in (Warm, Cool, Teal and Orange, Bleach Bypass, Mono Contrast, Cross Process, Faded Film, Night), and LUT Split: one look in the shadows and another in the highlights (or left / right, centre / edges).
• More picture files: Photoshop (PSD), HEIC, EXR, HDR, TGA and QOI. BMP and TIFF now open too (they were offered but didn't load).
• Backups: every save keeps the previous version in a "Backups" folder next to the project (the last 10). File › Autosave saves a changed project every 5 minutes.
• Cues: a Random button, a countdown to the next cue that fires by itself, and Save / Read CSV for names and timings.
• Sliders can be limited to part of their range (right-click › Limits): a controller then covers just that part.
• Colour swatches: save colours and reuse them on text and on shader colour settings.
• Index steps: a step sequencer track can pick one of a few choices per step (a clip, a blend mode…).
• DMX monitor in the LED / DMX panel: see the values going out.
• Permissions in the Devices panel: camera, microphone and screen recording at a glance.
• Graphics card choice on machines with more than one (Output panel).
• Mapping Studio: save sets of slices to show on their own.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.3.0

What's new in 0.3.0

The first batch of what VDMX and MadMapper have that Phosphor didn't.

Playback

• Random frames: a new play direction that jumps all over the clip (between its in and out points).
• Black at end: with Loop off, a movie can go to black when it ends instead of holding its last frame.
• Jump back / forward buttons in Playback, by a number of beats or seconds; MIDI, OSC and keys can press them.
• 1:1 pixels: a layer can show its picture at its own size (no scaling), next to Fit, Fill and Stretch.
• Reload a movie or picture after changing it in another app (media right-click, or the button in Playback).
• Playback shows more about a file: frame rate, bit rate, pixel format, colour space, sound. Media tiles say how many layers and clips use each file.

Mixing

• 13 more blend modes: Soft, Hard, Vivid, Linear and Pin Light, Hard Mix, Colour Burn and Dodge, Divide, Hue, Saturation, Colour, Luminosity.
• Crossfader curves: both full in the middle (as before), smooth (no dip), straight, or a cut.

Outputs

• Freeze an output to hold its picture while you change things behind it (also one mappable control for all).
• Flip an output left-right or top-bottom (rear projection, upside-down projectors).
• Delay an output by up to 10 frames, to line it up with a slower projector or LED processor.
• Snapshot of one output, as the projector gets it.
• Mapping Studio: Match the picture's shape squares a slice up to its picture's proportions.

Controllers

• Endless knobs (relative MIDI) and a dead band for jittery faders.
• More value effects on mappings: threshold (a fader as a switch), limit, repeat, jitter, fall (peak hold) and a drawn curve.
• Soft takeover can glide the value to the fader instead of waiting, and the pickup distance can be set.
• Several OSC ports, and wildcard OSC addresses on mappings (/deck/*/level, /btn/[1-4]).
• Copy and paste a control's mappings (and a slider's motion) onto another control.
• Each mapping in the list has a button that shows its control (selects its layer and opens the panel).

Elsewhere

• Notes panel, saved with the project.
• Search in the layer source menu; hide effects and sources you never use from the lists.
• More imported shaders convert: functions that take a picture, textureLod, and shaders with a variable named u.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.99

What's new in 0.2.99

• 53 new effects hand-picked from Jared Bruni's lostjared collection: tunnels, kaleidoscopes, mirrors, spirals, stained glass, neon lattices. Several move with the music. Find them under "lostjared" in Effects.
• Imported ISF shaders that use textureGrad now load.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.98

What's new in 0.2.98

• Hap R: record and convert to Hap R, Hap's best quality (better colour than Hap Q, and it keeps transparency). Hap R movies from other apps now play too.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.97

What's new in 0.2.97

• Mapped controls stand out: any slider, button or clip cell mapped to MIDI, OSC or a key now has a gold outline and tint (it was a tiny dot), so you can see at a glance what's mapped.
• Stereo sound for shaders: audio-reactive shaders now get left and right separately (the ISF way: one row per channel), so XY oscilloscopes and stereo visualizers work. New: Curve Ink Scope (px-stream by darosh), an XY scope that draws left against right. The waveform shaders see is now the newest ~11 ms in a row, as other ISF hosts give it.
• Particles: MadMapper's Transform Particles effect now works (shaders that draw their picture many times).

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.96

What's new in 0.2.96

• Runs on macOS 13 Ventura (was 14 and newer).
• Windows installer: Phosphor-windows-setup.exe installs Phosphor with a Start menu shortcut, opens .phosphor projects with a double-click, and uninstalls cleanly. The zip is still there for people who prefer it.
• Raspberry Pi 5 / Linux ARM (preview): Phosphor-linux-arm64.tar.gz. Use it as a player that follows a Mac's show (Session › Follow another Phosphor › Every time Phosphor starts). See its README.
• Masters: an output can show a whole comp as its picture (Outputs › Shows), so each output can have its own mix.
• One Inspector: it now shows whatever you selected last, a layer, a clip, a mapping slice or a Control Surface widget, with a switch on top.
• Crash reports sent by themselves (optional): Report a Bug › "Send crash reports by themselves". Off unless you turn it on; available once the crash server is set up.
• More older ISF shaders load (ones using words like sample or filter as names), and a new audio visualizer, Glitch Wave (px-stream by darosh).

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.95

What's new in 0.2.95

• ProRes plays far more lightly: ProRes 422 now goes straight from the Mac's video decoder to the graphics card (about half the CPU), and ProRes 4444 with transparency is decoded by the Mac's hardware too: four 1080p layers went from nearly five CPU cores to under half of one, with truer colours.
• Record and convert to Hap Q and Hap Q Alpha: much better colour than Hap (smooth gradients, skin, logos), still decoded by the graphics card.
• More MadMapper Surface FX work: Extend, Vertex Noise and the FX template now load (their settings live in the vertex part, which also moves the picture).
• Fixed: Hap Q Alpha clips had dark fringes on their soft edges.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.94

What's new in 0.2.94

• Library › Inputs: every camera, capture card, screen, window, Syphon and NDI source in one list, plus a stream address. Drag one onto a layer or a clip cell, or put it on the selected layer or a new one.
• Drag onto a slice: in the Mapping Studio, drop a media file, a live input or a layer on a slice to show it there.
• The Inspector shows the clip you click: name, how a press plays it, MIDI mapping, sound, its own settings.
• Moving heads: extra channels (gobo, prism, zoom, strobe…), each a control you can map and modulate.
• Fixed: dragging media onto a layer card did nothing; some sliders were hidden off the edge (a moving head's tilt and dimmer, the 3D-model mapping sliders, LED gamma).

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.93

What's new in 0.2.93

• Curved slice edges: turn on Curved edges on a slice and drag the two handles on each edge to bend it onto round tables, arches and curved screens; the picture follows. Works with Mesh warp too.
• Movie sound in streams and recordings: Stream & Record › Movie sound puts the sound of the movies playing into your stream or recording, in sync with the picture, mixed with your mic or interface if you pick one too.
• Choose where movie sound plays: Audio › Plays on (headphones, an interface, a loopback…). Remembered.
• Step tracks fire clips: a gate step track can play clips, fire columns or switch any control on each lit step, a clip sequencer on the beat.
• Lights are controls: a moving head's pan, tilt, dimmer and movement size, and any light's brightness, can be learned to MIDI, modulated, locked, put on the Control Surface, and set over OSC.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).

Phosphor 0.2.92

What's new in 0.2.92

• Describe a shader (AI): in the Shader Editor, Describe it… — say what it should look like and the AI writes it (a new effect or source, or a change to the open shader), with sliders for its settings. Shaders that don't compile are fixed automatically. Needs your own Anthropic API key, kept in the macOS Keychain.

• Phosphor keeps itself up to date. It checks for a new version as soon as it opens (and every hour), downloads and installs it in the background, and then asks to relaunch. Choose Later and the new version opens next time. Turn it off in Help › Check for Updates (Install updates by themselves).

• From a link: Media › From a link… brings in the video or GIF from a post on X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Vimeo and more: download it into the media bin (a clip that loops and works offline) or play it live from the link. Instagram may need "Sign-in from ". Needs yt-dlp (free; the window says how to get it). GIFs stay GIFs: a direct GIF link is saved as is, a site's GIF is preferred over its MP4, and GIF/picture posts (Tumblr, Imgur…) come in through gallery-dl when it's installed. (X and Instagram only have MP4s.)

• FFGL mixer plugins (Mac). Mixer plugins (the kind Resolume uses to blend layers) now work: Inspector › Mixer plugin picks one for a layer, and it blends that layer onto the layers below instead of its blend mode. The layer's opacity goes to the mixer's Opacity setting, like in Resolume, and its other settings are right there.

• Where a layer's picture comes from. The Inspector now says it at the top: generated (and by what), a movie or picture file (its full path, a Show in Finder button, and a warning if the file is missing), a camera, screen, Syphon, NDI or stream, another layer, or text; and which clip slot triggered it.

• New example patch: Shader Editor › Patch › "Example: kaleidoscope glow with trails".

• The Session picture is live (WebRTC). People watching your output in a browser on the network now get it over WebRTC (H.264): sub-second instead of the old JPEG stream, and much less network traffic. Browsers that can't do it still get the old picture.

• A file straight on a slice. A mapping slice's "Shows" list has A file…: pick a picture or movie and that slice plays it on its own, without it appearing in the mix.

• Sharp sliders. Every slider, meter, progress bar, video scrub bar and step-sequencer bar now has square corners, and the last few plain sliders (crossfader, interface brightness, stream bitrate, media tile size, layer window width) are the same slider as everywhere else: name and value inside, double-click to reset, right-click for an exact value. The crossfader's right-click also maps it.

• Player mode. While following another Phosphor, "Every time Phosphor starts (a player)" makes this Mac follow that leader at every launch: with start-at-login and outputs-on-their-screens it comes back by itself.

• The patch canvas no longer draws under the Shader Editor's preview, and a comp's picture shows in the Inspector.

Full history: CHANGELOG.md

Install

Mac (Apple silicon): download Phosphor-mac.zip, unzip, drag Phosphor to Applications. First launch: macOS says it can't verify Phosphor (not notarized yet): click Done, then System Settings › Privacy & Security › scroll down › Open Anyway, once.

Windows 10/11 (preview): download Phosphor-windows.zip, unzip anywhere, run Phosphor.exe. Windows warns once because the app isn't signed: More info, Run anyway.

After that, Phosphor updates itself (Help › Check for Updates…).