Audioshield
Improved support for Vive Cosmos headsets
Fixed an issue that could cause the game to hang during skin loading.
SteamVR 2.0 Update
- Native Index controller support
- Support for controller mapping with the SteamVR Input system
- New option to disable the purple shield from automatically appearing when controllers are close. So now you can configure the purple shield to appear solely from a mapping of your choice.
- Nicer looking obstacles to duck under in Fitness modes
- A few other small graphics improvements
Have fun!
EDIT: Thanks for the reports!
Sparks now fly from hard punches as they should.
Mixed reality is fixed now too.
The Fitness Update!
2 new skins!
10 new songs (including 5 from The Murder City Devils and a new custom Audioshield Theme)!
New Fitness Modes - Get ready to squat!
Fitness Modes
Two new Fitness modes have just been added. The main new feature in these modes is white Fault Boxes that you need to squat under so they don’t hit you in the face. This adds a new exercise element to the game that can get your heart rate up even more. In fact, the VR Health Institute has measured it as equivalent to playing tennis!
The fault boxes are carefully placed to make you move in time with the music - just like the punching/blocking actions you make with the shields. It’s especially fun when you stand up into a big song transition after a squat. These are now the most fun modes in the game for me and the extra exercise is a great bonus. They also require harder hits to get a high artistic score - so really go for it.
10 New Songs!
Audioshield now comes with 10 more built-in songs (in the Recommended section of the song browser). Like the others, these are hand-picked as some of the best Audioshield experiences out there.
The Murder City Devils (Rock)
5 Murder City Devils songs are now included with the game! These songs have been inspiring me for years and were some of my most-listened back when the original Audiosurf algorithm was coming together - it’s so awesome for me to be able to share them here! The five songs are: Flashbulb, I Want A Lot Now (So Come On), Press Gang, Rum and Whiskey, and 364 Days.
Audioshield Theme (Epic)
A new custom composition just for Audioshield! Winifred Phillips has composed an epic-style track just for Audioshield. She worked hard to make sure the composition created great gameplay moments and it really paid off.
Break of Reality (Cello Rock)
One of their most popular songs, Spectrum of the Sky, has been a favorite Audioshield and Audiosurf 2 track of mine for years. In approaching them about licensing it, I discovered Helix which also creates great gameplay. Enjoy these two!
Surgeryhead (Electro)
An up and coming Irish musician working in the direction of bands like Carpenter Brut. Audioshield now includes two really great tracks from him: Revelations and She’s a Runaway.
Song scanning
This update also includes a song scanning feature that automatically finds song files on your machine. Once scanned, songs can be found using the Search Computer and Random Song features. You can start a scan from the Options screen (gear icon). It runs in the background, but pauses during gameplay to make sure there aren’t any framerate hiccups.
New Skins
This update also comes with two new skins. The first is called Minimum and it’s for those that want to play with absolutely no distractions. The other is called One Day - and is just that. The sun rises at the start of the song and sets before the end. The wind blows with the intensity of the music, moving clouds and grass with the song. This one was a lot of fun to work on and I hope you enjoy visiting there!
Other stuff
- Better performance on the Manifold skin. It now stays at super resolution on even more machines.
- Bolder colors on both the Manifold and Horizon skins.
Streaming is down
Small synchronization change for youtube videos
The way it used to work is that synchronization files (yash files) could be shared and your game would use a shared one when you played a youtube song for the first time. The shared file would usually synchronize just right, but would occasionally be noticeably off. Then, during your first play, a more perfect sync file was generated in the background to be used for future plays. Now, the optimal sync file is generated before your first gameplay session with a video.
For local song files, like the recommended songs tab and your own MP3s, this doesn’t change anything.
There’s a new launch option to revert this change and go back to the old way of sharing yash files if you'd like:
+allowsharedyashfiles
The Dynamic Update: Jack Conte music and Dynamic Resolution Rendering
Dynamic Resolution
Audioshield now automatically scales its resolution up or down to keep quality as high as possible while maintaining framerate. For most of you, this means the game will now automatically render in a higher resolution and text will be much easier to read.
It also means that Audioshield can now scale down to lower GPUs. The lowest I've tested so far was a 1050ti and that ran great. Even lower should be possible (especially if you set the in-game quality setting to "Low").
Thanks to Valve for publicly releasing The Lab renderer. Their dynamic resolution code was the basis for this.
New Music
Two new songs from Jack Conte, "Gulf" and "Push", have been added to the built-in Recommended list. These are two favorites of mine and it's awesome to have them in the game - Enjoy!
Enhanced Graphics and Optimization
Graphics have been updated with a new effect on the sidewalls in the Neon Stadium skin. The Horizon skin got new orbs that are much easier to see, no matter what video is playing in the background. The Stage Dive skin was optimized and now loads faster. The amount of collision sparks was increased everywhere.
Audioshield's rendering performance has undergone overall optimization as well. Running with the new higher resolution and the new effects now takes about the same amount of GPU time as the previous build of the game without those features.
Launch Options
By the way, there's several launch options you can feed to Audioshield. Look for "SET LAUNCH OPTIONS" in the game's steam properties to use these. They're mostly for making the game easier to use as a group or arcade experience:
+samplesongsonly (Only offer the Recommended songs in the song browser.)
+localscorepriority (Ask for the player's local scoreboard name at startup and only show local scores on leaderboards.)
+songchoiceonly (Skip past selecting shield and skin.)
+gameviewspectator (Show a smooth-cam view on the desktop during gameplay. This does cost some performance.)
+skippostridescoreboard (Don't show your score summary when the song ends, just return right to the song browser.)
+disablemodsecuritysandbox (Give Lua mod scripts the power to do pretty much whatever they want on your computer.)
+adaptivequalitydebug (Show the current dynamic resolution being used)
-show-screen-selector (Choose graphics quality level before launching the game.)
-logFile somefilename.txt (Output a log file to the game's install folder.)
+disableadaptivequality (turn off dynamic resolution scaling)
+disabledamageeffect (disable the color effect shown for each miss)
+disableposteffects (turn off the bloom/blur effect on color objects)
Have fun everyone!
Edit: 12.8.2017 --> post-update update
- Further optimized performance. It now renders above default resolution on a 1050ti
- Now drops sidewall effects on the stadium skin to keep resolution up (if needed).
- Made the miss effect more subtle.
- Added two new launch options (see above).
Edit: 12.13.2017
- Possible fix for crash on Windows 7
- Added "+disableposteffects" launch option
Edit: 12.19.2017
- Updated to latest Unity engine (2017.3)
- Disabled adaptive quality on Windows 7
"Waiting for Audioshield" hang bug fixed
https://www.vive.com/us/support/category_howto/optin-to-steamvr-beta.html
If you were one of the players sometimes getting stuck seeing "waiting for Audioshield" in the middle of songs, that problem is gone now! The old workaround of disabling haptics is no longer needed.
Also, there's new collectibles in SteamVR Home this week - including an Audio Shield.
Added Favorites!
Also, the number of songs shown on the popular lists was greatly increased, the first orbs on a youtube song can no longer stutter, and support for youtube URL entry was added.
Changes:
- Added Favorite songs list
- Increased number of songs shown on popular lists
- Orbs can no longer get a stuttering start with youtube songs
- Changed the search UI - youtube and local computer searches are now separated
- Added feature for entering a youtube URL
Updated: Recent Songs are now the default song view
The idea is to show more players the songs they want to play right when the game starts. A list for favorite songs is a good suggestion too - I'm looking into that.
Changes:
- Updated to the latest SteamVR
- Made Recent Songs the default song browser view
- Increased the number of videos listed with recent songs
- Dethrones and Challenges can be selected. This switches to the relevant song and difficulty.
- Fixed a missing script warning seen in the game's logs