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!