Audio Waves Visualizer Plugin 3.0.2

• - Renamed "Cartoon Frame" to "Reactive Camera Frame": Refactored the effect for better performance and fixed several rendering bugs within the shader.
• - Fixed macOS Transparency Bug: Resolved an issue where sources appeared invisible on macOS/Metal. The renderer now uses a two-pass system to ensure graphics are drawn correctly across all backends.
• - Improved Multi-Platform Rendering: Standardized the coordinate system, ensuring that scene filters, cropping, and rotations work consistently on both Windows and Mac.
• - Fixed Windows Crash on Exit: Resolved a crash occurring when sources were deleted. Direct3D 11 resources are now properly locked to the graphics thread during destruction.
• - Enhanced Resource Loading: Hardened the initialization process to prevent "black frames" on startup by pre-allocating textures during source creation.
• - Memory Management Improvements: Added lazy-retry logic for graphics memory allocation, making the source more resilient during high GPU load.

After a few months of experimenting i finally reached to the point where I'm satisfied of this plugin, I replaced the entire core of template based effects with HLSL shader effects that react to the audio sources, you can now create your own effects using just the minimal readme in the repo or use the 13 pre defined effects.

ATTENTION!! Some of the effects may be very resource consuming, may HALT youyr CPU/GPU witouth crashing OBS Studio and you'll have restart your setup so be careful, experiment with the options and do not jump to "Full Option"

Click to expand...

The core concept is now as follows

OBS audio source
↓
RMS / peak / FFT band analysis
↓
shader uniforms
↓
transparent OBS visual source

After version 2.0 release thedocumentation was cleaned a little bit to prepare for some new cool looking themes for this plugin

New Features

Multi-Color Gradient System

• Added true 3-color gradient support with individual color pickers.
• Gradient is now rendered spatially across shapes instead of a flat blended color.
• Fully supported on:
  • Line
  • Circle (Orbit & Rays)
  • Square (Rays)
  • Star (Rays)
  • Hexagon (Orbit & Rays)
  • Stacked Columns
  • Rounded / Wobble Bars

Attack & Release Smoothing

• Introduced time-based animation smoothing.
• Visual elements now expand and retract smoothly instead of snapping.
• Separate attack and release behavior for cinematic motion.

dB-Accurate Reaction Range

• Visuals now react between configurable dB ranges (e.g. -20 dB to -10 dB).
• React dB defines when motion starts.
• Peak dB defines maximum extension.

Theme Improvements

Rays Styles

• Gradient correctly mapped along ray length.
• Double-Sided Rays option is now only visible when the selected style is Rays.

Hexagon Theme

• Removed redundant color selector.
• Now uses the global color / gradient system consistently with other themes.

Stacked Columns

• First row is always visible.
• Remaining rows animate progressively based on the selected dB range.
• Smooth peak decay instead of instant drop.

Rounded / Wobble Bars

• Simplified controls:
  • Bars
  • Wobble Intensity (controls retract smoothing)
  • Mirror Vertical
• Removed unused dB parameters (Floor, React From, Full Height).

UI & Logic Refinements

• Gradient toggle behavior:
  • OFF → Solid Color picker visible.
  • ON → 3 Gradient Color pickers visible, Solid Color hidden.
• Shape Density is now only shown for themes that actually use it.
• Removed unused or misleading settings from themes where they had no visual effect.

Performance & Stability

• Improved FFT response smoothing.
• Reduced visual jitter on fast transients.
• More stable peak decay and interpolation across all visualizers.

This update focuses on smooth animation, accurate dB response, true multi-color gradients, and broadcast-grade visual consistency across all Audio Waves Visualizer themes.

Added a lifecycle patch that should prevent OBS Studio from crashing

Fixed the error that was causing the release pipeline to fail
Added a new global option for inset to allow you to use filters over the source to make it look better

Fixed various typos in the documentation

Hi everyone, due to some parameters that i missed when doing the PR, the newest version pipeline broke for MacOS and Linux causing the plugin not to be released. I have to update all the themes to remove the unused parameter then redeploy the changes. I’ll let you know when the update is applied.

Fixed download URL as the previous one was throwing a 404 error

Cleaned up the documentation to make it easier to understand and more straight forward to the end user not only for developers

• Fixed versioning preset
• Updated readme and docs to fit the new updates
• Implemented the windows auto installer