URGENT!! Please help---end of Winamp!
 

Well, maybe not Winamp, but AVS. UnConeD's planning on quitting AVS-making because the AVS wishlist has continually been ignored.

Here's why

There's other reasons involved, but the fact that we've been forgotten is terrible when it's caused possibly two people who were kings of AVS-making to leave or plan on leaving.

If you love Winamp, you'll help us! Let's get them to stop work on WA3 long enough to give us half a heart!

The Winamp developers can't stop working on Winamp3. They are now controlled by AOL, and AOL wants a better Winamp media player. So, Aus is working hard to get a better Winamp3 out there. The rest do have other priorities too.

I love Whacko AVS presets, they are probably my favorite, but if he wants to leave, then I'm not going to try and stop him.

Yes, but in the mean time, the rest of us are hindered by an AVS engine that never changes...the only new stuff comes out when one of us releases an APE.

It still needs to be brought to the attention of the Winamp staff. You know, just to make sure they haven't forgotten their roots & stuff.

So, where does Winamp get all this money?!? I miss my Online 2GB Winamp MP3 Hard drive account. I know they lost their sponsor on Sept. 11, but it seems odd for a company to pay a decent sized staff to make a free program

AOL?!? Adds!?! I've always wondered where their constant source of $$ comes from

AOL owns Nullsoft, and its been this way for some time now.

COtto1984: You know you're only 5 messages away from being a "Member?"

Nothing is stopping new developers from making a successor to AVS. The Winamp3 SDK + the Visualization MegaSDK should be able to put out a pretty powerful product. And if some people worked together on an open sourced project, everyone would benefit and the code would be forever available to new people to continue work where others leave off.

Just a thought.

-=Gonzotek=-

by "AVS Makers" do you mean the people that actually coded the visualization plug-in, or the AVS Preset makers...one group must continue their work for the good of mankind, the other group I'm fairly indifferent to...I know how to make my own AVS settings, but I certainly couldn't code something like AVS itself from scratch...

aol wont let them open source.
thats why, i say, fuck aol.

i would have been happier if nullsoft sold to microsoft rather than aol, at least microsoft wont go out of buisness for a veryveryvery long time, while aol is teetering on that edge as we speak. once time warner gets sick of losing money because of the burden to the earth that it aol and splits it off, aol will die taking nullsoft with it.

thats the reason winamp will probably die, not because an AVS'er is leaving.

Err, the sdk's ARE open source.
Go look, see for yourself, the source is there.

-=Gonzotek=-

And lets not forget how AOL tried (unsuccessfully) to shut down Gnutella when they purchased Nullsoft...I don't see what gives them the right to dictate what Nullsoft employees can and cannot do as personal projects in their spare time...

If winamp dies.. well I'll be sad.

i think you answered yourself with this statement. it doesnt have a pluggable architecture for nothing.

yeah, i was thinking the same thing before. i'd be willing to help, but i'm a pish coder in that language, and i don't have much spare time. but anyone who wants some help in a project like that, feel free to PM me...

OK, I have two very important questions to ask here.

1) Is there anyone here who actually is capable of making a new visualisation, from scratch? This means you would need to have the time and skills, plus listening to people's suggestions....

If I had the ability to code something like MilkDrop or AVS I would do it in a second, unfortunately I just don't have the experience. I would be more than willing to help out with testing, debugging and checking of anything if anyone was willing to use the new SDK to attempt a new plugin.

2) OK, say that the code for MilkDrop or AVS was made open source. I think there are probably a few people around who would actually understand how to "change" an existing plugin, rather than create a plugin from scratch. What I really want to know is, are there actual restrictions on AVS, or on MilkDrop? Has anyone actually ever asked Ryan (for MD) or Justin (for AVS) whether they'd be willing to have other people helping them out, or making the code open source? Surely this would benefit everyone - their plugins would get a lot more recognition, and the suggestions that have been made would be more easily implemented by a team of "developers", so to speak, than by just one person.

So, is there any chance of either of these ever happening? I'm very interested to know.....

there are a lot more skilled coders around here than you realise. have faith :D

hopefully someone will take up the challenge - as i said i don't really have time or experience to take the helm, but i'm willing to help...

I've coded about 6 APEs now, so I know what you can and don't do with them: most of the things on the wishlist are not possible through APEs because an APE can only do a visual effect, but cannot affect the rest of AVS in any way.
For example, I tried making a APE that would replace the editboxes in the AVS components edit panels with syntax-hilighted code boxes, but to do this from a 3rd party component you need to do some very ugly things and mess around in windows' internals: find the correct child window, attach yourself to the thread's input process and then replace the editboxes without AVS freaking and crashing. Sound easy?

In fact, given the virtually non-existing support from Nullsoft with regards to AVS preset authors and its limited pluggable architecture, it's amazing that the community today is still active: there's an extensive FAQ, a collection of APEs (listed on the forums), an introduction to all components (AVS primer) and dozens of coding tutorials on the forum.

In Winamp3, the least we expected would be that Nullsoft would include some DECENT avs presets for a change instead of the crap they produce themselves. With the release of WA3, AVS was the only visualisation components, so you'd think they'd want it to look as cool as possible.


I've been busy making my own script compiler for AVS code, so I've picked up quite some things in that area... however this work would've been unnecessary if APE authors had access to AVS' expression evaluation capabilities in the first place.
In any case, AVS is probably going to die a slow death because of its outdated architecture.

In february my exams will be finished and I'll have time on my hands again. If more people are interested I'm willing to start a new modular visualisation plug-in, but the work required for such an ambitious project is simply enormous.

I'd also rather not use the Visualisation Mega SDK because it's coded for DirectX/D3D and I prefer OpenGL because it's about a hundred times easier to use and at least leaves the possibility open for porting to other OSes (e.g. Linux or OS X).

A Winamp3 third party component developer who has released several components for Winamp3 informed me last night that they are updating AVS...that the Winamp3 SDK is being "streamlined" so that all the internals of AVS will be exposed to components and maki too, probably. I can't understand 90% of the stuff in the SDK, so I'm not claiming this as fact, but I trust the developer enough to take his word on faith.
You do make a VERY good point there. I wonder how much effort an OpenGL mega SDK would be...and whether it would require coding from the ground up or porting from the DirectX version.

-=Gonzotek=-

Gonzotek: I left this possibility open... as I stated in the original thread in the AVS forums:

well at least I'm getting SOME recognition for my hard work (AVS Primer) :p

Anyway, Gonzotek: AVS isn't open source, the SDKs are. Ideally we - actually some of the experienced coders, so we don't, as UnConeD elegantly put it, fork so fast we'd get an entire set of silverware within a week - could get the AVS source code and tweak it to fit our needs if and when we wanted; *deep breath* this way we could still read, view, and edit old AVS files as well as create new presets with new components and hard-code useful APEs (convolution filter, color map, etc.).

*applause*

i always did enjoy crapping around with avs and vomiting up my own presets. i even went as far as to make a crap 3d one. but i ran out of ideas on what to do. it would be cool to have more tools to work with. then maybe i would make presets more often and might get good at it.

I'm not sure I follow you here. You want the source for AVS to be open, but only open to some people and not others? I'd rather have a completely open source effort that allows anyone access to the code than an elitest project...the developers working on it could turn around and decide to do the same thing everyone's claiming Nullsoft is doing to AVS now--ignoring wishlist requests and not updating it(because they don't feel like it or whatever). If you want a project that is yours and yours alone to work on (or to share with only certain other people) you can certainly start your own. But I highly doubt that the AVS source will be made available to only select individuals, or opened in general, for that matter.

-=Gonzotek=-

You know what I say...

Decompile, and edit it for your selves. If nullsoft wont make a better version, make your for your self, reguardless how pissed nullsoft will get, they are not satisfying the demand for a better version. At least in this way, if someone will code ports for a openGL rendering (either cpu &/or gpu processing), people will like that one too, if a updated directx version comes along with it.

just dont edit the preset sections, for all compatible purposes :P

Gonzotek: If AVS was completely open-source, (I believe) it'd get completely out of control. You must realize the sheer power of ignorance...

Too bad you are quitting the game UnConeD. :(

Here's a thought: if and when AOL dies and Nullsoft no longer has funding, would Justin still try to keep it alive as long as possible with his own cash/donations? What about if he released it as open source when AOL and the AOL-Nullsoft deal is nullified?

And here I was thinking that the purpose of Winamp was to play music, and not to just sit there and look pretty...how wrong I was, how wrong I was...

Yes, you were wrong. Now go sit in the corner, heathen.

you obviously don't use winamp3 :up:

remember - people who use windows media player visualisations don't get chicks.

:D

Yeah, that is the main purpose of Winamp, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy its' other features at the same time. Personally, I don't care about skins (I usually use the base skin), but am a big fan of visualisation plugins such as MilkDrop. Each to his own though :)

So, what's the conclusion here? Is anyone willing to either start a new visualisation plugin, or, on the Nullsoft side of things, give us anything to play around with and edit?

Yep...I don't use any vis whatsoever because with the main window, playlist editor and lyricsAmp all displayed, winamp3 already takes up over half the space on my screen, and with translucency enabled on all the components it already eats up enough of my CPU time...maybe if I could get AVS to go 50+ FPS at full screen (i.e. a windows stretched across the entire screen, not that low res and non-translucentable "Full Screen mode") with translucency enabled, then I'd use it, but until then I have better things to be doing with my clock cycles.

End of Winamp? No. AVS? Maybe. I think that maybe we'll see Steven Wittens later in life, maybe we will not. It's just that AVS has sapped too much of his free time so he can do the things he needs to do: College, Women, and Friends. Yes, we are friends to him but he needs real friends. He may be back, he may not. We don't kow. :)

yes. we don't kow.


mooo.

(Xion(810)!!! You have 1234 posts! that's cool!)

Too late now to reply properly and and drunk and no morew drink in in expect for dark rum and no mixer but still fancy a drink so painfully having a drink.

oh well it has been a baad-ish night 'Jehovah, Jehovah'

as in

"Edler You're only making it worse for yourself.
Mathias Making it worse? How could it be worse?"

Anyway back to the subject in hand.

End

Most of my thoughts have been made in the link at the top of teh page.

Maybe it is because we are all disappointed with the normal Nullsoft 'I don't tell anyone anything' point of view.

I mean You could at least tell us/me it is not worth having wishlist forums as no devolpment is beimg done. I have spend many hours on these wishlist forums and if no devolpment is being donw than what is teh point and teh point of teh the other thousands of posts in them????!? What is the freaking point do nullsoft want to get the forum post count higher or something?

IF you do not want to do work on it let us no no problemat least then we know where we satnd.

This does not go just for AVS/MD et al but for the whole thing of feedback. Peter P. has left winamp and although it is no bitter lose from my point of view as he wasn't the most friendly person to grace the WA forums at least the feedback was there and he contrubted where he could. If you said this does not work because of xyz or you really need this tehn he would address it.FOrteh rest of WA who knows. :confused: :(

How many times do WA staff post to this great resource taht they have hear, how often do they read they ead they wishlist and comment on they and everything. Hell the users and mods give up there free tiem to improve the product maybe a post once a month would be nice.

Prsumeing that it dev has stopped on AVS then making our own ummh if we look at what happen to teh vis plugin scene why bother??

SUnConed my have left in not as dramtic style as Soren of ACidspunk fame where peopel stole his stoel and reposted it all over teh web as his own but teh community ois dropping like flys.

Most vis plugin authors are not making stuff fowa anymore I think we have 1 in the 6 months.:(

I do not know of any vis plug-in authors past or present that are actually happy with wa commitment/encoragement to them. Even the ones that still have teh time to make vises don't want to do it winamp. I have had to seemingly beg so author to bring things out for it.

Sad but true but this has been going on for tehe last year o two. It is obvious for teh community but just as obviosuly Nullsoft are to blind to see it.

I would love Nullosft to address any of these issues but I think they do not know these forums even exist half the time.

regarding new stuff I think I can muster teh drive within myself and others to create something new but I do not know if NullSoft are already creating something new (I know feoma recent rare email that ryan geiss is working on soem new stuff but do not know what???!??)

But I do not know if WA is the right place to promote this product.

Why Winmap and not another Player?

'What is my motivation?'

WA is the defacto standard for vis stuff has been for years and still is but will it stay that way I doubt it at this rate even with the great Ryan Geiss at the realm.

There you have it in a drunken mishmash style. Probably missed loads of stuff out and probably have said too much also but 'Jehovah, Jehovah'

AVS is under development. When the wasabified release comes out you'll understand why the wishlist forum continues to exist.

And check the Winamp3 forums. Brennan, Aus, and other Nullsoftites post there fairly regularly. I know for an absolute fact they check them often.

-=Gonzotek=-

Well, can't get as bad as the situation over at Sonique!

yeah, they listen to music using sonique!

sonique rox0rz my box0rz.

rovastar: were you drunk at the time of that post? (just wondering cos usually you're, well, coherent) :p

That I was. :)

Hmm... sounds like we're getting a new AVS version soon.

don't you mean "AOL 0wnz Nullsoft"? :)