What's new:

• Lock a preset - Random remixes ITS look NEW - Found one of the 1,144 bundled presets you love but want endless variations of it? Open Locks and hit Lock preset: now the Random button stops jumping to a brand-new preset and instead re-moods the one you're on - fresh colour, contrast, grade reactivity, Scene FX, and Club finish on every press, all pulsing to the music - while its motion stays exactly the same. It turns any preset into an endlessly explorable look: the same addictive doom-scroll as browsing, but focused on a preset you've chosen. Unlock and Random browses fresh presets again.
• Layers on bundled presets - calmer, and they stick NEW - Image, video, GIF, and text layers now sit still by default over a MilkDrop preset instead of riding its motion (flip on a layer's own audio sliders when you want it to react), Blend modes apply cleanly to bundled presets, and your layers now persist when you press Random - drop in a logo or clip and browse presets underneath it without it disappearing.
• Meld - your image, melted INTO the preset NEW - On any image, GIF, or video layer, hit Meld and that picture is fed straight into the preset's own engine - it gets melted, tunneled, kaleidoscoped, and pulsed to the music instead of just sitting on top as an overlay. A logo dissolves into plasma; a face melts through a tunnel on the beat; a photo becomes liquid. Dial the look with Flow (the melt motion), Size & Position, Mirror / Kaleido, Speed (down to gorgeous slow-motion), Luma Key, Blend mode + Colour grade, beat-reactive Spin / Zoom / Flow Pulse, and now two new melding tools - Mask (use the image's bright shape as a crisp stencil, so a logo or text gets filled with the swirling preset) and Displace (the image's shape physically ripples and embosses the melt). Remix gambles the whole melt for you. Works with still images, GIFs, and video.
• Club / Dark Room - one-knob dark-venue tune NEW - The go-to control for taming any preset for a club or dark room. Instead of just dimming everything, it detects blown-out white (the kind that lights up the room) and crushes that specifically, while pushing the remaining colour deeper, not dimmer - so whites collapse toward dark but the reds, blues, and greens get richer. One Club slider, a one-tap Club it button, and it works on all 1,144 bundled presets too.
• Community Packs + unlimited presets NEW - Click Import to browse and one-click install extra preset packs - ships with Extras Vol. 1–3 (750 more full-fidelity, shader-intact MilkDrop presets). Find them by typing the pack name in any search box; remove anytime. Under the hood, custom-preset storage moved to IndexedDB (with a native-filesystem mirror in the app), so the old "Storage full" limit is gone - save as many custom presets as you like.
• Preset Studio - One-click Remix + audio-reactive Color adjustments NEW - The footer Remix button now rolls an entire preset in one press - a moving colour-field background, three contrasting colours, a motion, a flow, and a wave, all pulsing to the audio - so no two ever look the same. Open Remix locks to pin the parts you love (Colours / Field / Motion / Flow / Reactivity) and re-roll only the rest, turning the dice into a real compositional tool. And new Color adjustments - Brightness / Contrast / Gamma / Temperature - re-mood the final output of any loaded preset (including all 1,144 bundled), with a Color Reactivity panel that makes them pulse to the beat: load a preset and it breathes with the music. Plus a Scene FX rack - Bloom / Posterize / Vignette / Scan lines / Film grain - to finish any preset with a soft-glow, graphic, cinematic, or retro look.
• Preset Studio - Color Field + Flow Style NEW - From-scratch presets no longer look like one thin spinning line on a flat colour. The new Color Field turns the background into a living, moving multi-colour field - it takes Shift's signature A→B colour blend (the dance/VJ pulse) and spreads it across the screen as any of 22 styles (Linear, Stripes, Weave, Radial, Diamond, Moiré, Conic, Spiral, Rays, Vortex, Mandala, Plasma, Clouds, Marble, Ripples, Checker, Hex, Chevron, Dots, Grid, Caustics - plus Flat), each with Scale / Motion / Spin / Sharpness / Warp (an organic ripple over any pattern), an optional 3-colour blend, and a beat-reactive field, still beating to the audio. A separate Background colour keeps the field distinct from the content on top, so the roll lands contrasting-but-harmonious colours instead of one flat tone. And Flow Style adds a per-preset motion field - Tunnel / Spiral / Ripple / Swirl / Plasma / Liquid / Kaleido - with Speed, Depth, and a Density dial that fills the screen. Together they give a blank canvas real depth, colour, and variety.
• Preset Studio - Color Studio NEW - The Palette tab's Colors button now leads a full colour generator. Hit for a complete random scheme, or steer it: pick a harmony rule (Monochrome / Analogous / Complementary / Split-complement / Triadic), a tone (Vivid / Neon / Pastel / Deep), and a Base Hue - any combination, or none for pure random. Chips toggle (click again to clear) and the dice lights up whatever it landed on. A Color Roll slider slowly cycles the whole scheme's hue over time, in solid and feedback presets. And Glow / Accent Strength now paint a real coloured bloom - a soft halo around the visuals tinted by your Glow / Accent colour - so all three palette colours finally show on the visualisation itself, not just as an edge border. Everything respects your per-channel colour locks.
• Preset Studio - Build From Scratch: Motion Engine · Custom Shapes · Colour Roll NEW - A new wave of from-scratch creation tools, so a blank canvas isn't limited to a handful of looks. The Motion tab now opens with a Motion Engine - pick Breathe (pulsing zoom), Sway (drifting centre), or Spin (rocking rotation) and dial Speed + Depth to give a preset living, evolving motion instead of a frozen snapshot. The Wave tab gains Custom Shapes - place up to four polygons/rings, each with a drag XY-pad, Size, Sides (triangle → circle), Angle, Opacity, Fill / Border / Glow, a per-shape Motion (Spin / Orbit) and a full Reactivity panel (Source + Curve + Size / Opacity / Spin / Shake / Sides, each with its own source pill), plus a Trail control from crisp (no trail) to long echoes; shapes render over the feedback presets and over a flat Solid/Shift background. And the Palette tab gets a Colors button that rolls a harmony-aware random scheme (complementary / analogous / triadic / split / monochrome) while respecting your channel locks. All of it plays live in the player and timeline.
• Beat-Reactive Layer Effects - 5 new NEW - The per-layer Audio Reactivity panel grows from five effects to ten. Joining Pulse, Bounce, Shake, Beat Fade, and Strobe: Tilt (snap-rotate ±15° on the beat, with a ←/→ direction chip), Hop (a directional left/right kick - the sideways cousin of Bounce), Hue Pulse (the layer's colour jumps on every beat, riding on top of any Hue Spin), Blur Pulse (a cinematic focus pull - blurs on the hit, snaps sharp between), and Squash (cartoon squash-and-stretch - Wide flattens horizontally, Tall stretches up). Every one rides the same Source (Bass / Mid / Treble / Volume / Flux) and Curve (Linear / Squared / Cubed / Gate) as the existing effects, on image, video, GIF, and text layers alike.
• Layer Animation - Entrance / Exit / Idle / Timing NEW - Every image, video, GIF, and text layer now has a Animate button that opens a focused modal - a creative planning tool for how each layer arrives, leaves, and breathes on screen. Three tabs: Entrance (Fade, Scale Up / Down, Slide L/R/U/D, Pop, Blur - auto-fires on preset load), Exit (same chip set with mirrored end-states, plays when the layer is removed), and Idle (Float, Pulse, Sway, Spin, Drift, Breathe - continuous motion with a speed multiplier). Duration is a custom visual scrubber with tick marks; ease is a chip row with a live SVG curve preview that samples the actual ease so elastic and bounce overshoots draw correctly. Each preset reveals one contextual parameter (Distance, Start size, Pop from, Start blur) so the controls morph to the choice instead of a fixed form. The modal is a draggable floating panel - the canvas stays live behind it while you tune. New: Enter at / Exit at time scrubbers (0:00–3:00) let you schedule exactly when each layer enters and exits within the preset's lifetime - stagger five layers for a cinematic reveal. All animations play live in the player and timeline, not just in the editor.
• Timeline - Multi-Track Stacking NEW - Stack multiple presets inside a single zone - the Timeline is now a real layer compositor. In Full Screen, the transport row's + Add Track button drops a new track on top of the stack (up to 4 deep). In Left/Right, Quadrants, and the other multi-zone layouts, each zone gets its own inline + Track button on its front-layer row - no extra strip rows wasted. Strip order is Photoshop-style: top row = front layer, so the strip reads like the composite. Added tracks default to transparent gaps (empty space reveals the track beneath instead of painting black), and paired with a Transparent Background preset, the upper preset's own transparent pixels reveal beneath too - true per-pixel layer compositing. Output routing is per zone: one ▸ chip on each zone's foundational row picks the display for every track in that zone, and stacked zones expose per-track blend mode + opacity in the Outputs panel.
• Aspect Lock - layers hold their shape NEW - Every image, video, GIF, and text layer now has an Aspect control, set to Lock by default: the layer keeps its true shape on any canvas, so resizing the window or going full screen reveals more of the scene instead of stretching it. Flip to Fluid for the old canvas-adaptive behaviour. Single, tiled, and grid layers are all covered - and the editor canvas no longer distorts when you hide the panel for a full-width preview.
• Transparent Preset Backgrounds - Timeline Stacking NEW - A whole preset can now go fully transparent, not just a single layer. Flip Show layers only + Transparent background in the Studio and your image, transparent-video, GIF, and text layers float on a see-through canvas. The payoff is in the Timeline: drop a transparent preset on a zone stacked over another and the lower zone shows through - real per-pixel layer compositing (e.g. a rotoscoped subject or a logo over a full-screen MilkDrop preset). Verified on web, macOS, and Windows with both image and transparent-video layers.
• Preset Studio - Remix Family + Wave Engine Fork NEW - The Studio used to always start from a blank slate. Now it has a Random button in a redesigned icon footer that one-clicks a random preset from the full 1,144-preset library straight into the Studio as your editing base - taking the variety from a dozen surface combinations to 1,144 starting points. Click it again to reroll. The footer is now five big Material-Symbols icon buttons with instant tooltips: ＋ New, Random, Remix (renamed from Surprise - same one-click re-roll of palette + motion + wave on whatever's loaded), Save, ↺ Reset. The Wave tab also gets real engine upgrades via a vendored fork of Butterchurn: a continuous Thickness slider (0–8) replaces the old on/off toggle (smoothly scales the wave line from hairline to bold), a new Fill slider (0–1) fills the wave into a broad shape - a pulsing disc on the round modes, a solid wedge on the line modes - so it reads as a solid form instead of a thin thread (the value also sets the fill opacity), and a new Rotation slider (±180°) spins the wave shape around its own anchor. All apply to every shape mode including Ripple, all compose cleanly with the existing Reactivity panel, and double-click on any slider label resets it to its default.
• Preset Studio - MilkDrop Editor Upgrade - A pass over every MilkDrop control to make the Studio actually fun to use. The 12 Quick Palettes now hover-to-preview live on the canvas, paint colors only (no more sneaky border state), and each color channel has a lock so you can remix the glow while keeping your wave color. + Save current mix pins your favourite triplet as a 13th chip. New Glow Strength and Accent Strength sliders drive border alpha + size together as one "loudness" axis. The Motion tab opens with six one-click Motion Presets (Vortex / Calm Drift / Earthquake / Tunnel In / Spin Lock / Hyperspace) and a ↺ Reset button beside them so you can always go back. The Wave tab gets a parallel Reactivity panel - Source + Curve + Size / Opacity / Shape / Orbit - with a tiny src pill next to each slider that lets you override the source per-slider (bass pumps wave size while treble morphs shape). A ↺ Reset on the Shape grid hides the wave entirely so nothing looks "selected" until you actively pick a shape. A Surprise button in the footer rolls a coherent random variation + palette + motion + wave in one click. And double-click any slider label snaps it back to its default value.
• Timeline Editor - Block Transitions NEW - Every block now has a Transition picker in its ☰ menu: Fade (crossfade from the previous preset), Black or White (dip through that colour), or Cut (instant switch) - a creative choice per block. Resizing is smoother too: the timeline strip auto-scrolls while you drag a block's edge, so you can stretch it to any length in one motion instead of drag-release-scroll over and over.
• Timeline Editor - Loop Regions NEW - Markers are now real loopers. Press M (or click the new dedicated marker lane) to drop a marker, set its action to Loop, and it becomes a draggable loop region: drag the band's handles to size it and playback loops that span, easing across the wrap with a 1-second crossfade. The per-block menu is now a clean action menu with a 16-colour block colour picker, and a playhead fix means adding a preset no longer jumps the canvas - the playhead is the single source of truth. Still in active development alongside multi-zone compositing, transport, and VJ mode.
• Recursive grids NEW - A Grid-mode layer can now nest. Subdivide splits every grid cell into an inner sub-grid, and Outer Gap opens wide channels between the outer cells so the sub-grids read as separate clusters - a grid-within-a-grid from a single layer. Pairs with Spacing for two independent gap scales, and every per-cell effect varies across every inner cell automatically.
• Grid mode for tiled layers NEW - Switch any tiled image, GIF, or text layer from density tiling to an explicit Cols × Rows grid that fills the canvas. Choose Fill (stretch the image to each cell) or Fit (keep its aspect, transparent pad), and a Scale control zooms the whole grid - pull it in with a margin, or push it past the canvas edge for tight, kaleidoscope-style compositions. Every per-cell effect and audio reaction carries over.
• Per-Cell tile controls NEW - On any tiled image, GIF, or text layer: Offset staggers alternating rows or columns for a brick / half-drop pattern, Cell Rotate gives each tile its own random rotation (with optional 90° snap for a Truchet-style mosaic), and Popcorn drives a per-cell audio pulse so individual tiles dance on different beat phases. New Variance sliders - Size Var, Jitter, and Opacity Var - give every tile its own size, position, and opacity; with scatter sampling, jittered tiles break free of the grid, drifting past their cell boundaries and overlapping each other for organic, scattered layouts. A Seed control reshuffles the random pattern. Composes with the existing Spin, Group, and Angle.
• Transparent Video Layers NEW - Drop a WebM with an alpha channel (e.g. an AI-rotoscoped subject from Sammie Roto) and the subject floats over the visualizer with full transparency. Works on web, Windows, and macOS (Mac auto-converts on first import). All VJ effects, audio reactivity, and motion controls apply to every frame.
• Various bug fixes

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