It's been a long and winding road to get here...

Our original TouchOSC app for iOS and Android from 2008 attracted a lot of attention and users, and over the past 10 years we've been inundated with feature requests and feedback pretty much constantly.

While we tried to fulfill as many of these wishes as possible, at some point it became clear to us that we'd have to re-write the application from scratch to be able to provide the flexibility required to implement the advanced functionality many asked for.

And so we did exactly that...

We've compiled all the comments and stories we've received since 2008, plus all the experiences, failures and successes building and supporting the original application, and poured all of it into a blueprint for a new application to do it all.

Along the way we've built our own cross-platform, GPU-powered application framework, added support for every major platform under the sun, wrangled endlessly with UI layouts, embedded scripting engines and many, many crashes, and shed our fair share of blood, tears and grey hairs.

While the result might not be exactly as grand as we had envisioned when we set out, and we did have to cut some features along the way to be able to actually ship before our batteries run dry, we're proud of this new, solid foundation on which to grow new and beautiful features for many years to come.

We hope you like it!

For all the juicy details on what this new kid on the block is capable of, please check out our new TouchOSC page and the user manual, all fresh off the press.

So where does this leave the original TouchOSC you might ask...

We've been thinking long and hard about this and finally decided to keep it alive for as long as humanly possible, as TouchOSC Mk1.

Many people still rely on the app as their daily driver, especially on older, low-power devices, and the technological leap we had to take for this new version could potentially not be a good fit for some current users that just don't want their boat to be rocking.

While in 2008 power efficiency was one of the main, guiding design goals for everything we did, the landscape has changed, and the current demands for rich interactivity and top-notch performance and throughput have led us to construct this new version more akin to a modern video game than a mobile app of the first wave.

We believe this makes the original TouchOSC still a valid choice for a lot of users, and while we're not going to be adding big, new features, we'll commit to maintaining and fixing the existing app for upcoming mobile OS releases for the foreseeable future. We hope our track-record shows that we're not kidding.

Finally, a BIG thank you to all our families, friends and beta testers, and to everyone who supported us over the years!

We appreciate it, you keep us going.

As with all our work, we'd love to hear what you think. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any and all feedback.

Hexler Heavy Industries - 2021

Compute Shaders

This new feature starts small but will eventually become huge. Being able to harness GPU power for heavy-duty number crunching has become commonplace in numerous fields, from AI, scientific research, fintech, cryptocurrency and cryptography ... well, KodeLife now does compute shaders!

Admittedly the current iteration is aimed at image manipulation but that is just our doorway into the room. Once development gets up to full speed expect to see KodeLife become the defacto, cross-platform, OS / API agnostic real-time compute shader editor. What a mouthful. We cannot wait to see what people create with this feature.

UI Language Localization

This type of feature doesn't seem like much ... unless you don't read or speak English i.e: 80% of the world’s population. Hexler firmly believes that everyone on this planet should have the right to be able to learn new skills – including coding – and our contribution towards the goal of education includes lowering as many barriers to entry as possible.

At the time of writing this post, KodeLife runs in either English or Japanese. We have plans to include Spanish and Simplified Chinese in future versions, so if you would like to assist with these – or any other languages (or correct any translation errors!) – please drop us a line.

PNG Image Export

We feel slightly silly omitting this feature for so long. From the File menu you can now save a PNG capture of the main output. Astute users will notice the suffix '0000' as part of the file name. Could this mean ... export image sequence is coming?

From the present, to the future

The rest of this blog post reveals sneaky previews of some exciting future features, so grab a coffee, there's a lot. To help us turn our KodeLife dreams into reality Hexler is hiring new developers and programmers, which leads us neatly onto licenses...

Licenses now available: Early supporter discount!

The easy way for us to gauge – and finance – future KodeLife development is to start selling licenses. Existing KodeLife fans and users can get in now with a very generous discount on our one-time, single purchase licenses.

This early supporter discount will only run for a limited time. We thank you in advance for your support! KodeLife thanks you.

Fund Future Development! Get Customer Support! Be Awesome!

KodeLife: The Future

KodeLife contains features not present – or even possible – in other competitive shader editors. What follows below is a constantly updated list of upcoming features. Basically, future features that will appear after licensed users start signing up. If you have any ideas or comments please do contact us. But for now, enjoy these new toys...

1. MIDI Learn. Also OSC and Gamepad.

Power is nothing without control. We briefly demoed KodeLife’s MIDI Learn feature during our presentation at the 2019 LPM Festival … and we’re almost ready to make this public.

*Future Feature

Users of a popular *cough* Live music DAW might recognise how KodeLife’s MIDI learn works. Turn on control mapping, click part of the interface, wiggle a knob, done. Want to change a setting? Wiggle a different knob. For performing artists, or GPU developers working with interactivity, MIDI Learn and OSC / Gamepad control in KodeLife is going to be very helpful.

2. Patchable Node Editor

We love node interfaces. From Nuke and Fusion to Quartz Composer and everything in between, there is something very satisfying about linking blocks together with virtual cables.

*Future Feature

Not going to lie, this feature is going to require some effort in the UI department before it hits public release, but we have node patching in our internal alpha, and damn is it fun. Quickly assemble scripts. Create groups and macros. And as a teaching or learning aid this a great way to encourage experimentation without the hang-ups of top-to-bottom text based coding.

3. Looped Movie Recording

The single most requested feature in our KodeLife e-mail inbox. It’s coming! While KodeLife runs, export a PNG image sequence to disk, looped or one-shot, at whatever framerate, which you can then convert (using any third party compression app) to the video codec of your choosing.

We opted for image sequence export due to simplicity, high image quality, minimal processing overhead, platform and OS agnostic output ... and did we mention simplicity? You can vote for this feature by grabbing a license.

4. Document Includes

Although lacking a screenshot (for now) we want also to briefly mention KodeLife Document Includes a.k.a. reusable code fragments. This feature is not only aimed at the working developers trying to manage complex shaders, but also for live performers and artists who want to quickly access blocks of code without resorting to copy & paste.

We are working towards an extended KodeLife document structure that contains a workspace of interlinked code fragments and chunks – thus making complex shader projects portable between entirely different platforms without the issues of missing or forgotten files.

5. More Localization: Chinese and Spanish and...

KodeLife already runs now with English and Japanese localization, and work is underway to implement Chinese and Spanish very soon.

6. More Compute Shader Functionality

The current version of KodeLife establishes our commitment towards providing compute shader functionality – at this stage in terms of image manipulation – but our intention is to see KodeLife become a fully featured real-time compute shader editor, alongside traditional GPU API shader coding.

And much more to come...

This is just a taste of the future features we have planned for KodeLife – bookmark this page or receive RSS updates when we add new information. Work will always continue on KodeLife but if you want to hurry things up, please consider supporting our work with a license purchase. Thanks!

Fund Future Development! Get Customer Support! Be Awesome!

No DRM. One-time Purchase.

We hate subscriptions: Buying a KodeLife license is a one-time deal. We hate DRM and intrusive 'call-home' checks: KodeLife doesn't do any of that either. You can run KodeLife on as many machines and operating systems as you own.

Large corporate users will need one license per head, but we won't hassle individual shader coders, small studios and visual artists with onerous license checks. Contact us if you have any licensing requests ... we're more than happy to work out deals for bulk licenses or academic sites. We hate asking for money – and internal discussion about how to fund KodeLife's future has nagged us for a couple years – but at this stage in KodeLife's development we feel that it's finally worth something.

Not to mention our 4+ year track record of 100+ beta releases, which can be relied upon as a sign of our goodwill towards development! Thanks again.

And as part of our on-going support for grass roots creatives, we decided to ask upon the very talented visual artist Char Stiles to share her knowledge on the topic of ray marching, and she quickly knocked out four pages with demo code and clear explanations.

Char Stiles is a Carnegie Mellon University graduate and currently creative-in-residence at the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, but more importantly she has an engaging Instagram account littered with cool imagery. We're fans.

Back to the Ray Marching

A free PDF of issue 20 of Wireframe magazine can be downloaded here, or if you live in the UK keep an eye out for the print edition and buy a copy. Our tutorial begins on page 36.

KodeLife

Finally, in terms of 'blowing our own trumpet', Char Stiles used our GPU shader editor KodeLife (running on a Raspberry Pi) to demo her tutorial. And so can you: Still in free public beta, and immensely cross platform, KodeLife runs pretty much anywhere so grab a copy of the app here. The circle is complete.

Thanks to Ryan and Eben at Wireframe and RPi Foundation respectively for this chance to contribute, and massive thanks to Char Stiles for producing the actual tutorial.

Files.app Integration

Now accessible to TouchViZ users – arguably one of the more useful additions to iOS – Files.app will be familiar to anyone using iOS 11+ and effectively enables users to interact with iPad file storage in much the same way as Explorer or Finder works on a computer.

Users are able to access, duplicate, delete, rename and move TouchViZ's projects, media files and performance recordings within Files.app quicker and easier than ever before.

New app icon!

For anyone paying attention to what's been going on at Hexler these last 6-7 months, its clear we have been busy refreshing our image, as well as releasing some new software. These updates include a new family of icons across our entire range of current apps, and this now extends to a funky new TouchViZ icon.

P.S. For the design geeks – the new icon is a 16:9 aspect ratio rectangle above a smaller 'iPad' aspect ratio rectangle, with the beam of a projector linking the two. Also the negative space creates a 'T' and a 'V'... Just in case you were wondering.

And also ...

The following updates in version 1.4.0. will benefit all TouchViZ users:

• New projects default to 'Quality' output mode
• Improved 'About' screen with direct links to support and documentation
• Corrected sorting of 'Load/Save' project lists
• Corrected sorting of 'Media/Recording' lists
• Corrected handling of incoming OSC messages with 64-bit integers
• Various minor bug fixes and performance enhancements

#touchviz on Social Media

We really enjoy seeing & sharing what you have been up to with TouchViZ, so please tag all your social media posts with #touchviz and tag our dedicated app accounts @touchviz_hexler on Twitter and @touchviz.hexler on Instagram. There is also a TouchViZ Facebook page you can contribute to.

Thanks for your support!

In the interests of allowing a larger number of users to access the power of GPU shaders - and to reduce confusion for less experienced coders wishing to join the party - today, we have made available the first iteration of KodeLife's Documentation aka The KodeLife Bible.

Coding ain't easy and one of KodeLife's primary aims is to make coding easier.

In the documentation we explain the ethos for the app, cover the user interface, key functions and features, highlight a few quick and secret button combos plus – the more astute users might note - hints of a hidden roadmap written between the lines.

Work in Progress.

As Hexler constantly strives to improve the functionality and features in our apps, the same evolving improvement can be said of our Documentation. If at first you don't find the answers you seek, check back tomorrow, in a week, in a month as there will be continual updates, or for the impatient just drop us a line if something is lacking or unclear.

This year Hexler – both Rob and Dan – will be at the meeting to learn and hopefully share in equal measure. We are planning a short talk to introduce our latest GPU shader prototyping utility KodeLife, and to also throw some pixels of our own onto a screen.

LPM Schedule Info

Rob will be showcasing KodeLife (showcase info here), and also performing live visuals alongside audio artist GRAIN noir (live set info here).

Live Performers Meeting

For any visual performer a visit to LPM is a must. It's an inspirational goldmine for VJs, live coders, light wranglers and any sort of technologically inclined artists but as this year's event marks the 20th meeting (the "XX edition") it's a special milestone to be celebrated. Visit the Live Performers Meeting website for full information and registration.

And if you'd like to meet Hexler either at LPM or on the fringe, we will be in Rome for the duration: May 2-5 2019. See you there!

Welcome to our new website. Behold our new logo! Our newly formatted documentation! Our new online store! Our upgraded search functionality! OK you get the idea.

You would be amazed by the sheer willpower required to peel ourselves away from the work we actually prefer to be doing (i.e: making apps) to instead dive eyeballs deep into the thankless Sisyphean muck of a total website redesign: A task we've happily been rescheduling for quite some time, but could not put off any longer.

We did it. For you.

So welcome to the new online home of all things Hexler, hopefully you find the droids information you are looking for. And be sure to follow our new social accounts while you're at it: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Initially designed for testing MIDI and OSC (the current version only supports MIDI, OSC and Gamepad input) future versions will include HID, DMX, ArtNET, IoT protocols and more...) Protokol monitors and logs complex data streams with absolute accuracy.

We built Protokol to test our own apps during development – and quickly found use for it at our home studios, troubleshooting MIDI rigs – then our music producer friends started bugging us for copies ... so here we are!

Currently available as a beta. If you have any feature requests we'd love to hear 'em.

Click here to find out more and download the beta...

• Ability to have incoming and outgoing UDP port numbers be the same, as required by certain hard- and software
• New option to send all OSC messages as bundles, including time-stamps, allowing receivers to determine when exactly an event was generated
• New XY/Multi-XY options to toggle outline and background rendering, allowing for more customization and some performance improvements for large controls
• Added "Help" button to "Settings" screen
• Bug-fixes and added options in TouchOSC Editor 1.8.5

Additionally, the documentation has been updated and finally integrated a lot of Android specific instructions! Please take note of the "iOS | Android" selection in the top right, above the table of contents.

Next up, we have TouchViZ, with some enhancements and fixes.

• Added ability to toggle recording using MIDI and OSC messages
• External displays are now activated automatically
• Added "Help" link to application manual on "Settings" screen
• Minor bug-fixes and performance improvements

More coming soon!

And last but not least, here's KodeLife, our newest baby, which we've been working on for a while now.

KodeLife's a real-time GPU shader editor, with planned support for most available operating systems, graphics APIs and shader languages, running on a humble Raspberry Pi to a multi-GPU power-workstation. The core idea is to be able to sketch out shader code quicker and easier than it would be possible in a multi-gigaton game engine, but it lends itself just as well to performing live-coded, audio-reactive geekery or simply for studying, learning, exploring and experimenting with shader based technology.

KodeLife's still in beta and we're ironing out the kinks while occasionally breaking (a lot of) stuff, but apart from hopefully becoming a rather useful application if you're at all interested in computer graphics, it is also a peek into the hyper-cross-platform, technological future of all Hexler software! See you there!

If you've been using TouchOSC on Android, chances are you've noticed that Tab pages just can't be decorated the same way their iOS brethren can. This flaw goes waaaay back to version 1.0, with the bug being that it was possible at all to do this. Long story short: NO MORE!

There's now an official option to add labels to individual Tab pages! These should adjust beautifully to any scale or device, and we've added every possible customization we could think of, including separate states for active/inactive pages. Grab the update + refreshed editor and enjoy!

Additionally, we've added options to disable PushButton message sending separately for press and release, added an option to send XY message parameters in reverse, and, as always, fixed a whole bunch of bugs while at it...

Recording for TouchViZ

A much requested feature is coming to TouchViZ today: Recording!

The titular "Big Red Button" lets you start/stop capturing the master output (mix, blending, effects and all) to an H.264 encoded video file right on your pad.

From there it's only a couple of taps away from being used in your set right there and then, or patiently waiting to be transferred to a "real" computer at a later time. We're a tiny bit proud of this one and we hope you like it too!

We've also added options to prevent the camera's autofocus from ruining all of your audience/party/performer shots, and fixed another one of those pesky crashes accessing the device library. Good times all around!