I'm putting the quote first
This is a big update and really hope you enjoy it. Pro users, thanks for sticking it through, this one's for you.
Quote:
"Doctor says I need a backiatomy."
WARPCORE: IKANDY's own MilkDrop engine
Every MilkDrop preset now runs on an engine built and tuned in house, so when you report something, it can actually be fixed. It is brighter, faster, and 440 presets strong.
Presets render in high dynamic range, so highlights bloom and glow the way the rest of IKANDY's scenes do.
Leaving a preset for another visual is smooth now: the outgoing fade no longer stutters while the next one warms up.
The engine credits its roots. IKANDY carries forward code adapted from Butterchurn by Jordan Berg, compiles preset equations with eel-wasm by Jordan Eldredge, and renders a format created by Ryan Geiss in 2001. The full list lives on the About page.
The Quick Access Ring
Press M or middle click anywhere: the whole show is one flick away.
Left click plays, middle click tweaks, right click travels the app, and scrolling turns the dial.
The center knob reads Menu or Shortcuts so you always know which wheel is up, and wheel labels carry your theme's accent color.
New shortcuts: M opens the Menu wheel, Q opens the Shortcuts wheel, J opens the DJ Console, and G opens the Stage.
A new shell
A cleaner rail, workspaces that scale with your screen, and one global Intensity fader that goes to 11.
Library, Create, Stage, Output Stage, Vibe and Setup are full screen workspaces, one click apart with no dead ends.
The console bar slimmed down to pure performance controls.
First open is smooth, and the GPU rests while you browse.
Your library
Every preset is a real card with a cover and a Pulseprint ribbon showing how it behaves: motion, material, mood and energy, most of it measured from the actual pixels.
A Details drawer tells you everything: where it runs, where it came from, its license, and what it needs.
Search understands facets, so you can ask for things like motion:pulse.
Scene names are cleaned up everywhere.
The section formerly called Showcase is now 3D Worlds, and One Small Step lives under the GAME tab only instead of being listed in two places.
Create
Create is one workspace with three lanes side by side:
AI Create for generating new visuals from a prompt.
Shader Import for bringing in shader code, with verified Shadertoy imports cryptographically authenticated.
Image Studio for turning your own images into scenes, where naming and saving are now a single gesture.
Preset packs (.ikpack) can be exported, verified and shared, and every Workshop upload lets you choose whether to publish under your Steam name or your IKANDY handle.
The DJ console
The console has a new simplified face, and it is the new default: one tight strip with Scene, Mix and Presets tabs, your music transport, BPM and Intensity, plus a small LED line reading your song, artist and scene.
The full console stays one click away, or press L to switch between the two sizes. IKANDY remembers which one you prefer.
The Settings gear moved back to the end of the console bar, and every console key now wears your accent color.
Knobs and sliders track your finger exactly like the Stage dials on a touchscreen, with long press to reset.
Look and feel
Intensity is one global fader. Drag it once and it reaches every engine and every scene at the same time.
God Rays work on every engine now, including MilkDrop, not just a handful of scenes.
God Rays self calibrate. Turn them on and they find a good look for whatever is on screen instead of leaving you to hunt through sliders.
God Rays got much lighter. They were quietly rendering at more than double the resolution they needed, which cost real frames per second. That is fixed on every engine.
God Rays and the LUT color grade both start Off, and one click jumps them to a smart Auto setting.
The separate Pulse slider is gone. Its job now lives inside the Intensity fader, so one control does more.
A small Global tag marks the controls that apply everywhere, so it is clear which knobs are shared and which stay per scene.
Saving a preset now records only what you actually customized, so your global God Rays and LUT choices stay yours when a preset loads.
Monitors, wallpaper and broadcast
Output Stage is the one home for every monitor: span, mirror, wallpaper and capture on a live map.
The Quick Access Ring honors the layout you shaped there instead of forcing every display.
Wallpaper mode keeps getting steadier: heavy scenes no longer fight your desktop for GPU time, and quality holds up during long sessions.
NDI output (Studio) broadcasts your show alongside Spout, with audio you can switch on or off inside the stream, for anyone running a video mixer or streaming rig.
F9 saves your last 30 seconds instantly and Shift plus F9 starts a recording on demand, both riding a steadier, lower lag capture pipeline.
Steam Broadcast and the Steam overlay have their own toggle in Setup, on by default, so streaming to your followers is one flip away.
Stage (Studio)
Stage Remote: pair your phone with a two digit code and run the show from your hand.
Milk Deck: a two deck MilkDrop mixer on the Stage console. Crossfade between two presets like a real DJ mixer, and load your own .milk2 files.
Preset Lab: a workspace for tuning MilkDrop's equation controls live, with hot apply, clear error messages, and a one click roller for fresh variations.
Stage also gains the Visual Director runway, and HOLD now freezes the Pilot clocks.
Play together
Shared Moon multiplayer: join other IKANDY players on the same lunar surface and drive together. This update also closes a rare exploit that let a remote player crowd out your session with a runaway object.
A frame timing bug that could freeze pets and other animated layers while a busy scene played is fixed.
What comes with Pro and Studio
Span, Mirror and Wallpaper now come with Pro. They used to require Studio.
Locked workspaces now show a live preview behind the upgrade card, so you can see exactly what an upgrade buys before you decide.
Fixes and stability
A long running mouse related frame rate drop is fixed at the source. Moving your mouse over the app could quietly starve the render loop on any engine.
The automatic quality tier no longer flips back and forth right after launch on some machines.
If your GPU driver resets, IKANDY brings the show back by itself instead of sitting on a black screen.
Pilot no longer gets stuck rotating past a deleted My Scenes entry: it skips it and rolls the next one immediately.
Saved multipass scenes load reliably at boot, and a preset's LUT can never overwrite your saved look.
Pilot rotation got smarter about small decks and freshly saved scenes.
A cleaner first run and fewer pop ups overall: one compact welcome card creates your artist profile on the spot, update notices can be skipped per version, and this two sided What's New page is new too.
Hundreds of smaller fixes and cleanups from a full audit of every change since 1.3.1, for a leaner and faster app.
A small ask
IKANDY is a few reviews away from Steam showing it to more people. If this app has earned a minute of your time, an honest review helps more than you know. Good or bad, every word gets read and used to make the best app possible.
Getting help
Discord: https://discord.gg/V2XcssgeW5
Email: [email protected]
When reporting a bug, include your GPU, the scene or mode you were in, and the steps to reproduce.