2007-02-02, 18:41
I normally announce updates to the MilkDrop for XBMC Preset MegaPack I maintain on a few Usenet groups and on a few torrent sites. This time, I decided to upload it to Megaupload and announce it to a couple of forums (here and the Xbox-Scene forum). My info file rambles a bit and I should probably clean it up, but a least is currently gives a detailed account of the progress I've made since the beginning. The latest update information is at the bottom.
You can grab the latest MilkDrop for XBMC Preset MegaPack here.
Keep in mind that this is a kind of complete repository of every MilkDrop preset out there (that I could find, anyway). Some of the newest run a bit slow and the quality isn't top notch for every preset. But this is ALL of them. You are more than welcome to use this MegaPack to create your own edited collections. Personally, I prefer the sheer variety of this collection.
--
MilkDrop rocks!
Over at the MilkDrop Resource Website < http://www.milkdrop.co.uk/ > there are 3601 additional presets available for download. The last preset update package is from 8th October 2003, but Rovastar, the website's maintainer, promises updates after he finishes Winamp plug-in v1.05.
Now that XBMC supports zipped preset packs, I have decided to repackage this Update Pack. I know that with my set up, transferring over 3600 little files from my PC to Xbox took almost ten minutes. Because the 42 character filename limitation of the Xbox doesn't apply to files packaged in a zip file, I decided to go back to the original unmodified preset names.
I took the 3601 presets from the MilkDrop Resource Website and placed them in a folder. The 435 presets included with XBMC were taken from Winamp. There was one extra preset not included with XBMC (Rovastar - twisted bytes.milk). I copied the 436 presets from the current Winamp 5.092 build into that folder, allowing duplicates to be overwritten. This gave a total of 3657 presets. Based on the number of presets in my old Update Pack, I suspect there are probably 10 or so duplicate presets in the lot with slightly different filenames. Based on how much effort it would be to find and eliminate these duplicate presets, I decided to leave them. If someone wants to try to hunt them down, they are welcome to! Just let me know which ones they are ;-) Then I packed all of the presets together into a Milkdrop.zip archive. As per instructions on the XBMC forums < http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/fo...onboard.pl >, I've created this .zip archive in no compression "store" mode. This allows XBMC quicker access to the presets. As an added advantage for anyone who wants to include this Update Pack in their XBMC builds, compressing the Milkdrop.zip archive with WinRAR in "best" mode brings the file size from 9.33MB to 651KB. This huge compression savings doesn't work using any other zip mode besides "store".
What's really nice about MilkDrop is how fast it runs on XBMC. The problem is that it really runs too fast. MilkDrop for XBMC now supports configuration through a milkdrop.xml. This Update Pack also includes a modified milkdrop.xml. After a lot of experimenting, these are the changes I made:
I have <AnisotropicFiltering> set to true. I have <MeshSize> increased from 32 to 48. These two settings produce a noticeably higher quality image with minimal speed decrease. Having a <MeshSize> of 64 looks beautiful, but runs very slow. I have <TimeBetweenPresets> increased from 8 to 14 and <TimeBetweenPresetsRand> increased from 5 to 6. This way, each effect lasts from 15-20 seconds, instead of 9-14. Occasionally the current effect changes sooner because of the <HardCutLoudnessThresh> setting. I increased <BlendTimeAuto> from 1 to 3. I think the transition from one preset effect to another is one of the most interesting features of MilkDrop and I think the transitions work better at a longer 3 seconds. I played around a lot with <MaxFPS> and decided that 36 (instead of 50) runs quickly, but is not as insane (or nausea-inducing). Incidentally, the default <MaxFPS> is set on Winamp to 30, but I found 30 to be a bit too slow.
I also wanted to mention that when MilkDrop for XBMC was first released, there was a problem with "too many presets." This problem was fixed when milkdrop.xml was created and the default setting for <enablerating> was set to false. This eliminated the slowdown and repeating preset problem that came with having too many presets. There are still XBMC builds that mention in their build notes that you shouldn't use any extra presets because this causes problems, slowdowns, etc. This is not true and refers to the old issue that has been corrected. Now, granted, some of the presets in this Update Pack are complex and will run slower than 36 fps, but I estimate that this affects 1-2% of the included presets, possibly less. Considering how infrequently this slowdown happens, I definitely think it's a worthwhile trade-off for the sheer variety of effects you gain. I'm definitely taking a "quantity over quality" stance here.
You can grab the latest MilkDrop for XBMC Preset MegaPack here.
Keep in mind that this is a kind of complete repository of every MilkDrop preset out there (that I could find, anyway). Some of the newest run a bit slow and the quality isn't top notch for every preset. But this is ALL of them. You are more than welcome to use this MegaPack to create your own edited collections. Personally, I prefer the sheer variety of this collection.
--
MilkDrop rocks!
Over at the MilkDrop Resource Website < http://www.milkdrop.co.uk/ > there are 3601 additional presets available for download. The last preset update package is from 8th October 2003, but Rovastar, the website's maintainer, promises updates after he finishes Winamp plug-in v1.05.
Now that XBMC supports zipped preset packs, I have decided to repackage this Update Pack. I know that with my set up, transferring over 3600 little files from my PC to Xbox took almost ten minutes. Because the 42 character filename limitation of the Xbox doesn't apply to files packaged in a zip file, I decided to go back to the original unmodified preset names.
I took the 3601 presets from the MilkDrop Resource Website and placed them in a folder. The 435 presets included with XBMC were taken from Winamp. There was one extra preset not included with XBMC (Rovastar - twisted bytes.milk). I copied the 436 presets from the current Winamp 5.092 build into that folder, allowing duplicates to be overwritten. This gave a total of 3657 presets. Based on the number of presets in my old Update Pack, I suspect there are probably 10 or so duplicate presets in the lot with slightly different filenames. Based on how much effort it would be to find and eliminate these duplicate presets, I decided to leave them. If someone wants to try to hunt them down, they are welcome to! Just let me know which ones they are ;-) Then I packed all of the presets together into a Milkdrop.zip archive. As per instructions on the XBMC forums < http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/fo...onboard.pl >, I've created this .zip archive in no compression "store" mode. This allows XBMC quicker access to the presets. As an added advantage for anyone who wants to include this Update Pack in their XBMC builds, compressing the Milkdrop.zip archive with WinRAR in "best" mode brings the file size from 9.33MB to 651KB. This huge compression savings doesn't work using any other zip mode besides "store".
What's really nice about MilkDrop is how fast it runs on XBMC. The problem is that it really runs too fast. MilkDrop for XBMC now supports configuration through a milkdrop.xml. This Update Pack also includes a modified milkdrop.xml. After a lot of experimenting, these are the changes I made:
I have <AnisotropicFiltering> set to true. I have <MeshSize> increased from 32 to 48. These two settings produce a noticeably higher quality image with minimal speed decrease. Having a <MeshSize> of 64 looks beautiful, but runs very slow. I have <TimeBetweenPresets> increased from 8 to 14 and <TimeBetweenPresetsRand> increased from 5 to 6. This way, each effect lasts from 15-20 seconds, instead of 9-14. Occasionally the current effect changes sooner because of the <HardCutLoudnessThresh> setting. I increased <BlendTimeAuto> from 1 to 3. I think the transition from one preset effect to another is one of the most interesting features of MilkDrop and I think the transitions work better at a longer 3 seconds. I played around a lot with <MaxFPS> and decided that 36 (instead of 50) runs quickly, but is not as insane (or nausea-inducing). Incidentally, the default <MaxFPS> is set on Winamp to 30, but I found 30 to be a bit too slow.
I also wanted to mention that when MilkDrop for XBMC was first released, there was a problem with "too many presets." This problem was fixed when milkdrop.xml was created and the default setting for <enablerating> was set to false. This eliminated the slowdown and repeating preset problem that came with having too many presets. There are still XBMC builds that mention in their build notes that you shouldn't use any extra presets because this causes problems, slowdowns, etc. This is not true and refers to the old issue that has been corrected. Now, granted, some of the presets in this Update Pack are complex and will run slower than 36 fps, but I estimate that this affects 1-2% of the included presets, possibly less. Considering how infrequently this slowdown happens, I definitely think it's a worthwhile trade-off for the sheer variety of effects you gain. I'm definitely taking a "quantity over quality" stance here.