What's New

This page gives an overview of new features of Ventuz and also references related User Manual pages.

For a detailed list of all features, changes and bugfixes have a look at the ​Release Notes. For a guide on all actions to take when migrating from the previous version, see the Migration Guide.

Ventuz 7.01

Configuration Editor / Decive Configuration

• You can now select in the Preview Window Settings on which connected screen the Designer fullscreen should land.
• Video Output Devices now have properties to handle newly introduced output of HDR signals.

Configuration Editor / Render Setup Editor

• A new measurement information box has been added which shows useful information, such as their length in pixels.
• Measurement markers are now sticky to the item they reference.
• Implemented copy/paste functionality for Compositions, Screens and Touch areas.
• The measurement line is fixedly resized at an angle of multiples of 45 degrees when "shift" is pressed.
• By clicking on the "Import device configuration" button, a new dialog appears that allows to import (output) streams and TUIO inputs to Output Mapping. If a group (cluster) is selected, the import is performed for each active configuration of each machine.
• Added the possibility to rearrange outputs between machines.
• Outputs can now be labeled.

Designer

• Increased the amount of Textures that can be used at the same time. From 8 to 14 for pixel textures and 4 for vertex textures / effects. The order in which vertex effects are applied may be different than in Ventuz 7.00 Check the Usermanual for limitations.
• We've added more default gradient textures to the respective loaders.
• Project Properties / Format / Color Space: A project can now be turned into an HDR project in the format section of the project properties

Designer Nodes

• The Chart Nodes can now evaluate the Y value for a given X value.
• The Chart Nodes can now handle XY value pairs in the format (X0, Y0, X1, Y1, X2, Y2, ...). See documentation for further details.
• The Container Info Node now outputs the Composition name.
• The Movie Clip methods Restart, Pause, Play, Seek and the Auto Start can now be synchronized in a multi-machine Cluster (similar to the Cluster Task node). See documentation for further details.
• Introducing new PBR Light Node. The type of light can be changed between Point, Directional, Spot and Ambient. This light Node should be used when working with PBR.
• Introducing new PBR Sky Box Node and Aliases that are optimized for doing the prefiltering required for image based lighting inside Ventuz without external tools. The old Node can still be used even though the new one is much more convenient.
• Added HDRi default textures to the The Sky Box and Environment Texture Loader.

Designer Materials

• Texture Sampler Property Group now has Border Alpha in addition to Border Color. The default is 1.0 (full alpha), which is the old value. Alpha is not pre-multiplied to color.
• Normal Maps: can now be inverted on the Y axis.

Designer / Runtime

• Improved Logging "Info" for detecting Window Media Foundation devices (Webcams, etc).
• Ventuz is now able to output signals in HDR color spaces. Enabling HDR in the project settings will switch all parts of the compositing engine to 16bit float calculations and enable the correct output conversion.
• Remoting 4: the Cluster class was extend by methods to reconnect to running Ventuz Runtimes and to handle backup scenarios where machines have to be added/exchanged to/in a running Cluster. See API documentation for Cluster.Try Reconnect And Sync(), Cluster.Synchronize Machine() and Cluster.Synchronize Preloaded Machine().
• Ventuz Extension API: production ready 1.0 release. Check the related Git Hub and Usermanual page for more details.
• Notch: Introduced multiple GPU support! Check the documentation to learn how to set it up.

Director

• Added filtering capabilities to the Published Scenes dialog.

Ventuz 7.00

Configuration Editor

• The Configuration Editor has been overhauled and merged with the WebUI for an extended feature set and newer technologies.
• All new Render Setup Editor: The Render Setup Editor has experienced a full rewrite for extended feature set and to match the new workflows.
• Screen Rotation: The Render Setup now allows to rotate screens individually at any angle.
• Multi Canvas Workflow: Introduced all new Multi Canvas and Multi Composition workflow for layering and re-using elements on different screens.
• GPU output can be used as tracking source to synchronize tracking packets if the GPU is synchronized to house sync.
• Ventuz now supports multiple tracking devices like camera tracking systems per machine.
• Ventuz now supports multiple Touch Input Devices like TUIO or Windows Touch on one machine.
• Ventuz now allows on-screen and offscreen outputs in parallel, like Shared Surface and GPU output from a single runtime.
• Ventuz now addresses output adapters individually. No more Mosaic or Eyefinity setup needed. Output across multiple GPU outputs directly!
• Added possibility to measure the distance between Screens and Compositions in the Render Setup Editor.
• Device configurations for Video and Audio can now be changed on the fly while Runtime is running - no Runtime restart needed anymore.
• Mixed DPI support: Adding physical size to the Render Setup, it is now easy to create setups for output devices with different pixel density.
• Graphics across multiple output streams: output scenes across multiple SDI, NDI ... streams!

Designer

• The four window layout buttons in Ventuz Designer can now have custom names.
• Allowing preview of Live Video streams. Note that this will enable a live video stream even if it is not used otherwise, potentially slowing down Ventuz.
• Preview in original resolution in preview window: preview graphics in original resolution and pan in Designer independent of preview window size.
• Zoom in preview window: introduced free zoom and pan to Designer's preview window.
• Increased preview options in Designer: preview individual Screens, Canvases and Compositions.
• The Stage Editor has been improved and extended to the new feature sets.
• Enable additional outputs in Designer: Ventuz now allows to enable outputs other than the preview window.

Nodes

• Stage Previsualization: create an interactive previsualization scene using all new Previs nodes. Set up preview screens in a virtual environment, test interaction setups, have the previs scene create your output configuration on the fly.
• Particle System: Added further particle Collision Shapes like circle and sphere.
• Movie Clip: The OverrideFrameRate property now works for video files as well.
• The SystemID node can now provide the Project ID Guid.

Misc

• Cluster in a Box: Ventuz now supports rendering and output on multiple GPUs in parallel.
• Movie Playback: Support for fully Hardware accelerated Movie Decoding on Nvidia GPUs (​NVDecode). This allows you to playback 8k@60, 4 x 4k@60 or 8 x 4k@30 per GPU without an impact on the CPU.
• Performance statistics now show much more information: e.g. the Nvidia Sync board status
• Remoting 4: It is now possible to release scenes that have been loaded due to a Cue command afterwards via the Release command.
• Improved VMS discovery and Cluster communication for multiple ethernet interfaces: Control the used interfaces from the NetworkConfig.vnetcfg directly. No more Windows routes needed.
• Extended amount of pipes! The amount of pipes that can be used has been increased.
• Render Setup per project: the Render Setup is now part of the project instead of being machine global.
• Updated Chromium Embedded Framework to version 103.0.5060.134.

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Ventuz 6.12

Nodes

• New String Array Analysis node
• Text Effect nodes have new per-line dissolve mode
• Expression nodes can handle byte arrays
• Particle System received new Sine function module
• Improvements on Circle, Cylinder, Direction Light, SystemID, TextField Input and Ticker nodes

Designer

• Content Editor pastes copied nodes to the position of the mouse pointer
• Content Editor has option to show all members of a Content Family if at least one is selected.

Director

• Playlist received an 'All Out' item

Misc

• Introducing Ventuz Extension API (Alpha v0.9)
• Support for AMS CDI video format

Third Party

• Support for integration in ioversal's Vertex
• Support for Notch integration

Ventuz 6.11

Nodes

• New RamDiskWriter node to write and access byte streams in memory
• New Dynamic Expression node which supports the know property types and additionally DateTime and arrays for inputs and outputs
• Directory node now supports the ventuz:// scheme to easily list items in the active project
• New OpenCV Lens Distortion filter as Layer Effect
• Added the MuteAudio property to the Web Browser node
• The HTTP node now provides a byte array as ResponseBody
• The Interaction Rectangle node received a further TrackingMode 'NonCapturedWithAllKeys' which allows to always capture all keyboard events

Designer

• Improved Repository workflow
• Improved the Material node merging during a 3D import to reduce the size of the imported Hierarchy Tree

Director

• Added support for a Blank template to easily clear the Template Ports
• ​Companion support for ​Stream Deck

Third Party

• Support for Unreal Engine version 4.27.2
• Support for FreeD as tracking protocol

Ventuz 6.10

Nodes

• Depth Keyer effect on 3D Layer Root, keying out parts of the scene based on the depth buffer.
• New better quality Depth of Field, using an aperture based physical approach of DoF size calculation.
• Simple HTTP node for communication with HTTP servers
• Improved 3D geometry import
• "Write to log file" property on Log Node, allowing to also write logged messages to the Ventuz log files.
• "Layout and Scale" option on Shrink to Fit text effect node. With it you are now able to re-layout text to fill the target bounding box more effectively.
• New Swap RGB IPP Layer Effect that swaps two or more selected color channels.

Director

• New dockable window, listing Macros and their assigned Shortcuts and making them executable by double-clicking
• Added thumbnails in the playlists for better recognition of the items
• Some other minor Quality of Life changes - see Release Notes for more info

Licensing

• Increased 4K pixel limit for Core & Community Edition
• Core & Community Edition can now run on simple Virtual Machines (VMWare, Hyper-V, etc.)

Third Party

• Updated NDI to version to 5.0.3
• Updated Substance Engine to Version 8.08

Ventuz 6.9

Runtime

• New Integration with the Unreal Engine to render Ventuz objects into the Unreal Rendering, using the color and depth buffers from the Unreal Engine.
• Support for AV1 encoded movies
• Support for SRT video streaming protocol
• Updated FFmpeg to latest version
• Updated WebBrowser's underlying CEF library to latest version

Designer

• Added and improved Help pages

Director

• Introduced Director Remoting API to remotely control the Ventuz Director.
• Director API Improvements extending Playlist, Channel and Drag & Drop capabilities.

Nodes

• Texture Saver node has a new property to adjust the alpha premultiplication.
• New nodes for the Integration of external engines.
• Added Matte Choken properties to the Color Difference Keyer to allow fine tuning of the key to grow/erode it.

Ventuz 6.8

Runtime

• Updated IO Boards Drivers to support newer cards. See Hardware Vendors for more detailed information on that.
• Improved Performance of the Video Engine for more simultaneous inputs and outputs via IO boards.

Nodes

• New Texture Source Property Group for generating simple QR Codes.
• Added asynchronous saving to Texture Saver Node.
• Event Filter Node now has an event that is fired if the incoming event did not match the filter.
• OSC Node now can reset output properties on scene load and Excel Cell Nodes reset their outputs when no valid Excel Workbook is used.
• Added Newtek SpeedHQ decoding to the Movie nodes.

Designer

• Scripts can now be created in ​Visual Studio and referenced from Ventuz.
• Internal Script Editor and compiler now accept new C#/VB.NET language features.
• Properties Editor now accepts simple expressions as values - e.g. 7 + 3 * PI.
• Scene Statistics window allows to highlight all filtered nodes in Hierarchy and Content Editors.
• Added Rectangular selection box for Hierarchy Editor.

Director

• Added Shortcuts to Preload all Templates (all, in playlist or on timeline) and Reload all Templates.

Ventuz 6.7

• New NDI Receiver and NDI Source List nodes introduced for usage of NDI without a Video Pipe configuration.
• New License Model, Ventuz now has three editions with different feature sets, lowering the entry point to the Ventuz world
  • Free Community Edition (even for commercial projects)
  • Core Edition for medium-sized projects
  • Enterprise Edition, unlocking the full potential of Ventuz
  • The PLE (Prototyping & Learning Edition) still exists and has the same feature set as the Enterprise Edition. It has the same limitations like it had before this version: It will produce a disruptive watermark on the output of the Runtime, there is an obstructive nag screen in the Director and scenes built with the PLE Designer cannot be opened in other editions.
• ​Website has been completely reworked
  • The ​Ventuz Portal let's you purchase and manage licenses more effectively now

Ventuz 6.6

Nodes

• IME Textfield Input node
• CC Chinese Conversion node

Other

• Introducing the Web based Configuration Editor
• New feature: Property Tabs
• SDI Driver Update for multiple boards
• H.265 decoding
• NDI and SDI Update to Version 4.5

Ventuz 6.5

Nodes

• Snapshot Framebuffer node to retrieve the current state of the color buffer.
• The Interaction Rectangle node provides a rectangular geometry collecting and sending interaction events via UDP or ANC channel of a live video (currently VIO only).
• Audio Playback and Movie Clip Nodes are now capable of playing multiple streams and adjusting their properties individually.

Director

• Macros allow to assign specified actions or sequences of actions to shortcuts.
• Added reload all templates action.
• Added hotkey ALT to disable all channel rules when dropping an item into a playlist, property editor or a timeline.
• A lot of other bug fixes and convenience features, see the ​Release Notes for more details.

Other

• Ventuz now supports ASIO devices.

Ventuz 6.4

Nodes

• New Get Bounding Box node to retrieve the bounding box of a subtree.
• New Substance Loader and Substance Material nodes to open .sbsar files with editable input parameters in order to provide textures.
• Vive Controller nodes now have an event to let the controllers vibrate for a haptic feedback.
• Movie nodes now support NotchLC codec.

Designer

• Scene Optimization feature in the Scene Statistics dialog to detect and remove unnecessary nodes in the scene tree.
• In the Assets tab of the Scene Statistics it is now possible to replace assets for the whole scene or single nodes and you can re-reference missing assets.

Ventuz API

• Ventuz now comes with a Remoting4 DLL for .Net Standard and .Net Core.

Ventuz 6.3

Designer

• It's now possible to expand all collapsed nodes in the Content Editor with the Uncollapse All command.
• In the Project menu it is now possible to open the project folder in Windows Explorer.

Other

• The Cinema 4D livelink plugin now works with Cinema 4D R20.
• C# Script nodes can now reference assemblies from Ventuz installation and from project folders.
• The underlying CEF for the Web Browser node was update to Chromium 71 to improve performance and support new web technologies.
• Update NDI to version 3.8

Ventuz 6.2

Particles

• Added disable computation property to disable particle streams without resetting the particle system Particle Streams
• Added Data Animation module that applies the value of an array to each particle in a stream depending on their ObjectID attribute

Engine

• Added Spout Receiver node to receive video frames from a Spout Sender. Check the related How To to learn how to setup a Spout Receiver in Ventuz
• Added support for skinned GLTF 2 meshes with the new Animation Rig node
• Added support for new DXT / DDS Texture formats, so called BCn (Block Compression). Check the How To for an optimized workflow and how to create the the DDS texture with the new format.

Other

• Updated Deltacast SDI from V6.00 to V6.08.01 (patched). Please update using the Deltacast drivers that come with Ventuz, do not use the official drivers from the webpage. This adds support for most current SDI, DVI / HDMI and FLEX boards from Deltacast, see documentation for details and limitations

Designer

• Added High DPI support for Ventuz Designer UI
• In Content Editor it's now possible to highlight bindings to & from selected nodes (Option 'Highlight bindings of selected nodes').
• Containers can now be sealed with a password.

Ventuz 6.1

Particles

• Render triangles, edges and points from particles using the Nexus Modules
• Render order of particles on Sprite and Mesh Renderers
• Touch for feedback on hovered or clicked particles
• Surface Renderer to render a mesh from particles
• 3-dimensional Rotation of particles
• Swizzle module to freely apply and reorder channels of particle attributes

Engine

• Sprites are now properly lit and have options to adjust their normals
• New Layer Effect: Invert
• 2D Displacement Layer Effect: new absolute mapping mode
• Design Eyepoint on camera to support correct reflections in projection mapping setups
• Texture Components Material Stage: remaps R, G, B and A of a texture to any channel, this is good to save performance and material stages with packed textures

Other

• GLTF 2 support for Geometry Import
• Samsung Odyssey support
• Array Ease and Array Ease Morph nodes to interpolate floats and doubles in arrays

Ventuz 6.0

Engine

• Switch from DirectX9 to DirectX11 and HLSL3 to HLSL5
• Particle System, also see How to create a firework Particle System
• Path Nodes, also see Path Renderer, usable also on the newly introduced Particle System and Arrow Node
• New Draw Modes for Geometries and Paths
• Flipbook Control Material Stage and Flipbook Loader

Integrations

• Geometry Import and Geometry Import Live rework
  • SRT Keyframe Animation import
  • Camera and Lights import (Geometry File Import only)
  • Path Import (C4D Live Link only)
• DMX Support via sACN and Artnet

Workflow

• Property Editor rework
  • Multiselection and -editing of Properties
  • Migration of properties when the type of Property Group is switched
  • Many Property Groups can be extracted to Content Nodes or Hierarchy Nodes for re-usage of their configurations
  • Horizontal Property Group Lists for better overviewability
  • Custom Model Editor is moved into Property Editor
  • Easy generic animation of float Properties
• Container Outline Window
• Primitive and loaded meshes were split into Geometry Renderer and Geometry Provider to access geometry resources in the scene's logic
• Material rework
  • new UI
  • moved Render Options to Material Node
  • new Material Definition Content Node for usage in the scene's logic
• Introduced the Double Property type
• Staggering Mode to feather animation keyframes

New Nodes

• Color Picker Node
• Analyze Audio Node replaces FFT Analysis Node
• DMX Nodes
• Color became Color Solid (No Light), Color now only overwrites Base Color channel and leaves Lighting Model as it is
• Geometry Renderer Node
• Path Nodes:
  • Select Path Segments
  • Subdivide Path
  • Path Loader
  • Path Axis
  • Path Matrix
  • Path Renderer
• Particle System Node
• Arrow Renderer Nodes
• new Draw Modes
• Color Write
• Light Nodes have aliases with shadows

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