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Milkymist 0.3 release announcement

It is with great excitement that I am announcing the release of Milkymist 0.3. This release marks a significant milestone for the project: since now, it’s no longer tens of thousands of lines of code for nerds only. It’s also an actual MilkDrop implementation, rendering good-looking visual effects that EVERYBODY can appreciate.

But, see for yourself. If you have a Xilinx ML401 board, grab your JTAG cable and fetch a binary kit from the usual location. See the wiki for setup instructions. Put on some music, turn on random preset selection, and enjoy!

If you don’t have a ML401, here is a video for you to chew on before the Milkymist One boards are available:

(download MP4 file)

On to the technical change log of this release:

  • Major TMU redesign (TMU2):
    • Improved performance (2-3 times faster)
    • Rectangular rendering primitive
    • Bilinear texture filtering
    • Texture wrapping
    • Subpixel texture resolution
    • New vertex format
  • PFPU modified to support the new TMU vertex format
  • Additional MilkDrop features in the demo firmware:
    • More wave modes
    • Borders
    • Motion vectors (experimental)
    • Texture wrapping
    • Random preset chooser
    • Fine-grained decay

If you want to discuss and keep instantly updated about the project, I encourage you to come and idle in the #milkymist channel on the FreeNode IRC network. See this page.

See you there!

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