SplitCam keeps maturing. The new features added to the program are often quite complicated and require more time and efforts to be done properly. The task becomes even more hard to solve when trying not to break existing functionality and keep the program easy to use and preserve the most possible user-friendly interface. I'm sure we are on the right track succeeding with our goals since more and more streamers, models and occasional users prefer SplitCam over other software tools in their work and everyday tasks.
Highlights
Phone Camera
Smartphones these days have a very high quality cameras which oftentimes are better than webcams connected to users' computers. SplitCam now gives you an option to use your smartphone camera during streaming session. Connecting your smartphone to SpitCam is a very easy process: just add a Phone Camera layer to canvas, scan the QR code that appears with your smartphone, and you are good to go!
Source control bar
Source control bar replaced the controls bar found in previous versions of SplitCam. The difference is rather noticeable: now the control bar doesn't take up space in layers' view, also the control bar size is not affected by the layer's width or height. The controls are dynamically updated according to which layer is currently selected. In future SplitCam updates we are planning to give users the option to customize the control bar by selecting which buttons and controls they prefer for each source type.
Projector Window
Projector Window is what game streamers wanted to find in SplitCam. By projecting any selected layer to a separate window a game streamer may stream the gameplay while still keeping an eye on how they look in the webcam. The projector window gives you a separate view of any layer independently of the streamed canvas.
Face tracking
This is a cool feature we stole from the latest iPads: when you move your webcam will follow your face as if it has a built-in tracking system. And this is possible with any webcam no matter if it is the most expensive external webcam or the cheap one of a laptop.
Face blur
When you don't want your face to be recognized during streaming session you can hide it behind mosaic. The effect is easily accessible from the webcam's control bar.
Layer shadow
Now you have the option to add a nice looking shadow to any layer. The shadow even follows the complex outline of non-rectangular shapes like text or Lottie images. From the effect settings dialog you can control the shadow angle, distance and blur amount. Later we will also add an option to select the shadow color.
Zoom the canvas
It was a much awaited feature of SplitCam: using the mouse scroll you can now easily zoom in or out on any part of the streamed video without first selecting a layer like it was in previous versions. And there's more: the zooming is also possible when SplitCam is maximized to full screen.
Whiteboard
The new Whiteboard source may come very handy in live meetings, tutorial videos, explanatory streams, and many more cases. Use available drawing tools to make temporary or constant highlights, to attract viewer attention to a particular part in the picture. When coupled with a drawing pad, like Wacom, it gives you a powerful tool to better express you are trying to say in the video.
What's new
Option to add/hide tip notifications in stream
Some users prefer not to show tip notifications to their stream viewers so we had to add this option.
Added RGB32 format support to MMF webcam capture
Not very popular but still this format gives good quality picture and might be enabled on some capture sources.
Use alpha channel
Added new property to Window source: Use alpha channel. Some captured windows have alpha channel which was ignored by layer renderer. Now user can turn on using alpha channel in layer's properties dialog to correctly show transparent parts of captured windows.
Enable/Disable WMF Frame Server
During installation process SplitCam offers to disable Media Foundation Frame Server mode. This is a global system option which can affect the functionality of other software installed on computer. Now users can re-enable the Frame Server in SplitCam Settings dialog if they find disabling it unacceptable.
Added H264 webcam format support
It's not very often that webcams support this format but sometimes it is the default format for built-in notebook webcams. We've added this format support but it is still in development phase and require more work on it to be fully functioning.
Default to FullHD resolution
The world keeps evolving and so are we. 720p resolution is not enough nowadays so we switched to 1080p resolution in all program default settings.
New animated icon pack: Blondie
We partnered with an artist to create a unique Lottie animated icon pack for us which can be used in tip notifications.
Our own proxy servers
When working on tip notification we found out that it is not always possible to get access to notifications and oftentimes we have to use proxy servers located in other countries to be able to work with notifications. Having our own proxy servers seems to be the best option regarding the price and control. At the moment we have four of them.
CAPTCHA for intercepting tip notifications
Sometimes when accessing users' web pages in attempt to access tip notifications we are facing a CAPTCHA web page which cannot process automatically. We have to have the user to take an action in the browser before we can continue.
Proxy authentication support
To avoid giving public access to our proxy server we had to implement authentication support on the server and client side.
What's been updated
Auto selection of the fastest ingest server revisited
Added logging level to local.cfg options. Usage: logging = verbose|info|warning|error|critical
Check internet speed once a day only to reduce traffic usage
Added pause button to FloatingSceneControls
Don't show roundness handles for text and timer layers
Mark project file as dirty whenever user changes a page in a PDF Document layer
Show/Hide scene resolution and fps popup menus on corresponding button click
Statistics panel on canvas has been moved above the canvas preview
Ensure alpha channel not transparent in RGB32 format
Added an advise to check spam/junk folders for cloud confirmation emails
Changed color of info messages in cloud dialogs from blue to dialog background
Default to using alpha channel for captured window sources
Added splitcam.pdb file to setup project for better identifying errors on user's computers
Dim instead of hide layers when editing tip notifications
Monitor the display connect/disconnect events when capturing screen and react to changes
Added savers for game capture sources: you can close and restart a game and SplitCam will find it and restart capturing
Make sure all sources running the same static webcam are in sync with current settings
Correctly process XRGB image format
Added new event subsystem: interop::triggerEvent(...)
Unify source updating by using the same window message and a single message handler
Reuse active webcams in the 'Add a webcam' dialog which speeds up opening the Add a Webcam dialog
Use of OBS dynamic link libraries to overcome the protection imposed on video games while trying to capture them
Make additional scene snapshot in case the first one was made when not all scene sources were completely loaded yet
Zoom layers to the location of mouse pointer
Add necessary outbound firewall rules during SplitCam setup
Added switching game capture to window capture when hook-dll is not injected
Changed web browser cache location
Don't start notification catcher when notifications are enabled for a stream but no streaming session is open for it
Preserve commented lines in local.cfg file, parameters may be reordered during saving process
More elements are now supported in Lottie file format
Toggle notifications for each individual stream
Lower resource usage when chat capturing browser cefnoti.exe is running: don't load media and don't play video
When updating image resources skip those that already exist on user's computer.
Default notifications icon set updated to lotties
Make sure hardcoded ingest servers are the same as those on SplitCam servers
Optionally compare SplitCam ingest servers to those of OBS
