AudioLink 1.4.0

1.4.0 - May 10th, 2024

New features

• Added support for exposing a global video texture (_Udon_VideoTex) via the ytdlpPlayer avatar testing prefab. This functionality intended for testing avatar shaders that use a global video texture. The global video texture is not something provided by AudioLink outside of in-editor testing - this must be done by a video player. (techanon)

Changes

• We've changed the default song in the example scene, and the avatar testing prefab, to "Shibuya" by Rollthered. We remain forever thankful to Lamp for letting us previously use their unreleased track, "Sludge Bath".
• Reduced the sizes of various icon textures used by AudioLink. (Teeh)
• Changed the controller to use MSDF-based textures for the icons. (Vistanz)
• Improved the logic that searches for a yt-dlp excecutable in ytdlpPlayer avatar testing prefab. It should more consistently find the executable accross platforms now. Additionally, the ability to override which executable is used has been added under Tools > AudioLink > Select Custom YTDL Location. (techanon)
• The "Upgrade AudioLink compatible shaders" popup will no longer display on first import, as shader authors have had plenty of time to upgrade their shaders at this point. It can still be run manually via the Tools > AudioLink > Update AudioLink Compatible Shaders menu item. (pema)

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where the AudioLink texture was flipped when using OpenGL. (fundale)
• Fixed an issue where the ytdlpPlayer avatar testing prefab was selecting an incompatible format at certain resolution settings, resulting in the video failing to play. (pema)
• Fixed an issue where the ytdlpPlayer avatar testing prefab restarted the video about ~3 seconds in. (techanon)
• Fixed an issue where the AudioLink controller was z-fighting on mobile platforms. (pema)
• Fixed issue #299, where modifying the settings on the AudioLink prefab wouldn't properly apply to the control. (pema)

AudioLink 1.3.0

1.3.0 - February 18th, 2024

Changes

• Deprecated various static properties in AudioLink.DataAPI in favor of static functions to work around a miscompilation bug in UdonSharp.
• Deprecated the underused "AudioLink extra packages", which contains a single "AudioLinkZone" script. The script is now in the main package.

Bugfixes

• Fixed an issue where an exception would be thrown when leaving a world with AudioLink enabled. (@ShingenPizza)
• Fixed a bug where theme colors would reset when someone joins the instance. (Teeh, orels1, pema)

AudioLink 1.2.1

1.2.1 - December 9th, 2023

Changes

• Enabled Async GPU readbacks on mobile platforms, including Quest. This let's you access data via Udon much more cheaply. To facilitate this, AudioLink now requires Unity 2022.3 or newer. (pema)
• Moved the AudioLink menu in the top menu bar into the "Tools" submenu, to bring it in line with other similar packages. (techanon)
• Updated the "Add AudioLink Prefab to Scene" button to check for the existence of a prefab before adding a new one. (techanon)
• Made the controller call AudioLink.AudioLinkEnable and AudioLink.AudioLinkDisable instead of toggling the AudioLink GameObject. (Nestorboy)

Bugfixes

• Fixed normals being incorrectly flipped on the logo of the AudioLink controller. (llealloo)
• Fixed a bug where shader ID's used by AudioLink weren't properly initialized in some cases. (Nestorboy)
• Updated the shader used for the AudioLink controller logo to support single pass stereo instanced rendering. (Nestorboy)
• Fix an issue where shader ID's were initialized too late when AudioLink API was used too early in the script execution cycle. (pema)

AudioLink 1.2.0

1.2.0 - October 9th, 2023

Changes

• Important for shader developers: Deprecated AudioLinkGetVersion() and replaced it with AudioLinkGetVersionMajor() and AudioLinkGetVersionMinor(). For this current release, major will read 1.0f, and minor will read 2.0f. Unfortunately, the recent 1.0.0 and 1.1.0 versions will be detected as 0 on the major version due to an oversight. These should be the only versions in existence with an incorrect version number. For all other versions, these 2 functions are backwards compatible. Any shaders going forward should use these 2 functions, or read directly from green (major version) and alpha (minor version) of the pixel at ALPASS_GENERALVU.

AudioLink 1.1.0

1.1.0 - October 8th, 2023

Changes

• Made the logo on the new AudioLink controller audio reactive.
• Changed the recently added C# Data API to not use Vector2Int. This type does not work correctly in UdonSharp.

AudioLink 1.0.0

1.0.0 - September 29th, 2023

New features

• Added a new AudioLink Controller, with a completely revamped design. The old controller is still included, if you don't want to change. (Thanks to everyone who helped, including Pema, Lea, Teeh, Sacred, TechAnon and more)
• Added automatic gain adjustment. It's enabled by default, but you can disable it on the AudioLink controller. (Thanks, cnlohr)
• Added Async GPU Readback, you can toggle it on the AudioLink prefab. This means you can read data from AudioLink in Udon, without having to pay a heavy performance penalty! Note that this feature only works on PC. Quest (and other mobile platforms) will continue to use the old slow synchronous readbacks, which we advise against.
• Added a new C# API for reading audio data in Udon, to better accomodate the new Async Readbacks.
• Added Media Playback States, which provide information about the currently playing track. (See Docs). (Thanks, fundale)
• Added Media States Udon API VideoPlayer API, to control the aforementioned Playback States. (Thanks, fundale)
• Added an AudioLink prefab for ChilloutVR.

Changes

• We have switched to using Semantic Versioning, marking this release as 1.0.0. This may break shaders written for very old versions of AudioLink. The version will now read as 1.00f to AudioLink shaders.
• The "VRCAudioLink" namespace has been renamed to "AudioLink". This is a breaking change. We've added a new scripting define, AUDIOLINK_V1, which will be present for future versions of AudioLink, to aid with backwards compatability.
• Removed the dependency on the VPM package resolver.

Improvements

• Made yt-dlp integration resolve URLs asynchronously.
• Improved the yt-dlp integration UI in a number of ways. (Thanks, rRazgriz)
• Improved the "Add Audiolink Prefab to Scene" button.
• Improved logging, with less meaningless warning spam.
• Cache the local player in AudioLink scripts for slightly improved performance. (Thanks, Nessie)
• Fixed null reference exceptions being fired when a player leaves the world. (Thanks, Nessie)
• Fixed an issue where theme colors would reset to the defaults on world start (#281).

AudioLink 0.3.2

0.3.2 - March 30th, 2023

New features

• Added integration with ytdlp for easy testing of AudioLink shaders in avatar projects. The AudioLinkAvatar prefab now has an UI that lets you paste in a YouTube link, the audio of which will be used to drive AudioLink. (Thanks, rRazgriz)
• A global shader keyword, "AUDIOLINK_IMPORTED" will now be set automatically when AudioLink is imported.
• Added a button for quickly adding AudioLink prefabs to the current scene. Available under "AudioLink -> Add AudioLink Prefab to Scene".
• Added the ability to get network time from the AudioLinkTime node
• Added methods to enable/disable the AL texture through the AL behaviour and also made it do that when you enable/disable the GO itself

Changes

• Add FAQ.md containing frequently asked questions and answers.
• Add issue templates. Submit issues with them here.

Bugfixes

• Ask User to save current scenes before opening the example scene
• Fix some broken amplify nodes

AudioLink 0.3.1

0.3.1 - November 26th, 2022

Changes

• Updated the AudioLink package to work in both world and avatar projects, by removing the dependency on UdonSharp. The first time you attempt to import AudioLink into a world project, a popup will appear prompting you to install UdonSharp.

AudioLink 0.3.0

0.3.0 - November 11th, 2022

New features

• AudioLink is now a curated package! As such, it can be installed with VRChat Creator Companion. This is new the recommended way to install AudioLink. For avatar projects and non-VRChat use cases, there is a regular old UnityPackage you can use. Please see the readme for a guide on how to update your projects. We recommend you follow this guide, as the update is a breaking change.
• Since the folder structure has changed, custom shaders may need to be upgraded. A tool has been included to automatically upgrade shaders where needed. This tool is accessible from "AudioLink -> Update AudioLink compatible shaders" in the top menu of the editor. (Thanks, 3)
• Added Global Strings - text which can be read from AudioLink compatible shaders. Use this to retrieve the name of the local player and master in a shader, or to feed custom string data through. Info on usage is in Documentation. See AudioLinkGetGlobalStringChar(uint stringIndex, uint charIndex) in AudioLink.cginc for details.
• Included Amplify nodes for using AudioLink have been overhauled. They are now in their own "AudioLink" category, and handle including the relevant files automatically. Also, links to documentation are added. (Thanks, Nestorboy)
• Added a function, AudioLinkGetAudioSourcePosition(), for getting the worldspace position of the audio source being used to feed AudioLink. (Thanks, 3)
• Various shaders have been updated to supported Single Pass Stereo Instanced rendering, for future compatability. (Thanks, 3)
• The included video player, AudioLinkMiniPlayer, has been updated to support LTCGI. (Thanks, Texelsaur)
• The example AudioLink scene can now be quickly accessed using the "AudioLink -> Open AudioLink Example Scene" button in the top menu of the editor.
• The live AudioLink demo world has gotten an overhaul, and has a bunch of new cool things to play with.

Changes

• The GrabPass utilized by AudioLink has been removed! We use the new VRCShader.SetGlobalTexture to expose a globally available texture now. This is an improvement to stability and performance. Existing shaders should still be compatible with new versions of AudioLink.
• The camera used by AudioLink to provide audio data to udon (using the Experimental Audio Readback feature) will now be disabled when it isn't needed, which should improve performance a bit.
• When using an AudioLinkController, the values selected in the AudioLink inspector are now respected, instead of the controller overriding them on initialization. (Thanks, 3)
• Be consistent with swizzling in AudioLink shaders, use 'xyzw' everywhere.
• Removed uses of SetProgramVariable and SendCustomEvent throughout AudioLink code. (Thanks, 3)
• Use VRCShader.PropertyToID instead of strings for better performance. (Thanks, 3)

Bugfixes

• Issue 191 and 186 have been fixed. (Thanks, 3)
• Remove some old profiling code that could have a very slight impact on performance. (Thanks, 3)
• Fix the "Link all sound reactive objects to this AudioLink" button, which was broken when using UdonSharp 1.x. (Thanks, 3)
• Fix some minor inconsistencies in documentation.

Theme color improvements, Quest compatability, UTC time of day, a scripting define and major bugfixes!

There are 2 releases available now: Full and minimal. If you are unsure which one to get, go with the Full release. Minimal is slightly leaner and contains only the essentials.

Note that this release changes the included prefabs. Make sure to follow the below steps for updating from previous versions.

0.2.8 - May 14th, 2022

New features

• AudioLink theme colors are now configurable via the AudioLink controller with a slick color-picker GUI. (Thanks, DomNomNom)
• Added the ability to get the time since Unix epoch in days, and milliseconds since 12:00 AM UTC. Additionally, a helper function, AudioLinkGetTimeOfDay() has been added, which lets you easily get the current hours, minutes and seconds of the time of day in UTC.
• An editor scripting define, AUDIOLINK, which will be automatically added when AudioLink is included. (Thanks, Float3)
• AudioLink can now compile without VRCSDK and UDON, for use outside of VRChat. This kind of usecase is still experimental at best, though. (Thanks, Float3)
• Added a few new helper methods to sample various notes of the DFT. (Thanks, Float3)

Changes

• AudioLink theme colors have been cleaned up, including a new demo in the example scene, and the ability to change the colors in realtime in the editor. (Thanks, DomNomNom)
• Changed a few default settings on the AudioLink controller to be more responsive. (Thanks, DomNomNom)
• Changed folder structure to put less clutter into user projects.

Bugfixes

• Fix vertical UV flip of the AudioLink texture on Quest. (Thanks, Shadowriver)
• Fix error when using "Link all sound reactive objects to this AudioLink" button. (Thanks, Nestorboy)
• Add a header guard to AudioLink.cginc to prevent duplicate includes. (Thanks, PiMaker)
• Fix various warnings in shader code. (Thanks, Float3)
• Fix NaN-propagation issue in the included video player. (Thanks, Texelsaur)
• Add a player validity check to the included video player. (Thanks, Texelsaur)
• Use Networking.LocalPlayer.isInstanceOwner instead of Networking.IsInstanceOwner, which is broken. (Thanks, techanon)
• The logos on the AudioLink controller were using point filtering, which was changed to bilinear. (Thanks, DomNomNom)

Updating from version 2.7 or lower? (...first time setup? please see next section)

1. Take note of which AudioSource you are using to feed AudioLink, this reference may be lost during upgrade.
2. Install the latest VRChat SDK3 and UdonSharp (following their directions)
3. Close unity
4. With Windows explorer (NOT within Unity), remove the following files & folders:
   • AudioLink (folder)
   • AudioLink.meta
5. Reopen unity
6. Download and install the latest AudioLink release
7. If using AudioReactiveObject or AudioReactiveLight
   components, you will need to manually re-enable the "Audio Data" under AudioLink "experimental" settings. This feature is now considered experimental until VRChat maybe gives us native asynchronous readback.
8. In scene(s) containing old versions of AudioLink:
   1. Delete both AudioLink and AudioLinkController prefabs from the scene
   2. Re-add AudioLink and AudioLinkController to the scene by dragging the prefabs from the AudioLink folder in projects (world creators only)
   3. Click the "Link all sound reactive objects to this AudioLink" button on AudioLink inspector panel (world creators only)
   4. Drag the AudioSource you were using previously into the AudioLink audio source parameter
      • NOTE: If you previously used AudioLinkInput, you are welcome to continue doing so, however now in 2.5+ AudioLink is much smarter about inputs. Try dragging it straight into the AudioLink / audio source parameter!